Episode 18: "The Judges, Pt. 3" (+)

At one point in Cairo, when Eric and I were alone, I told him a theory of mine. The personalities of our trio were a lot like those of the American Idol judges. Gaby was Simon: the most aggressive of the three, super confident when engaging with any strangers, and able to speak his mind with few reservations when it came to conflict. Eric was Randy: Chill, level-headed, generally assertive but never rude. That left me with Paula: nice, careful, probably too eager to cater to other people's feelings. Eric agreed.

We had two days left in Egypt. The immediate plans were to go to a place called Fayoum (spelling's off here), an oasis city outside of Cairo that the hostel manager Ramadan had recommended to us. I wasn't there when Ramadan hammered out the logistics for Eric and Gaby, but the general breakdown was this: One driver with apt English skills, one (or two) pyramids explorations, a trip to a water spring of some kind, a boat ride on the actual oasis, and food. The whole thing was looking pretty fly. It also looked like we'd be home in time to make our dinner date with a friend we'd met on the street who sold cigarettes; we said we'd break fast with him in the evening.

In the morning we were picked up by our driver, an old guy who spoke next to zero English, but he seemed really nice. After maybe an hour or so of driving, we found ourselves completely cut off from anything looking like the metropolis of Cairo. We're talking farmland, donkeys, trees, river water, small houses, and the rest of the usual suspects of rurality. The outline of our pyramid appeared in a foggy haze behind the trees, mounted on desert sand. Once we got closer to the pyramid, it was strange to see the green of Fayoum suddenly cut off and give way to nothing but dust. By then we were up close and personal with our prize, just one of many sights to behold on our trip thus far:

It's been so long since the trip that I forget the exact details about this pyramid. Definitely pre-smooth pyramids, as you can see--another "prototype" before the Egyptians really got rolling. Part of the pyramid is caving in now from a faulty infrastructure, but nothing I ever built has lasted as long as this pyramid has, so I won't nitpick. The inside was pretty cool. We descended a long tunnel, climbed a ladder and chilled for a sec inside a barren room.

By the time our guide led us back out, he expected a tip. We were pretty used to people asking for them wherever we went, so we gave him one. The security guy standing outside the pyramid entrance asked us for a tip, too. I can't remember if we gave him anything, but I distinctly remember feeling that he hadn't done anything to deserve one. We checked out a tomb nearby, in which we had to crawl to get to our destination--another pretty barren room, but an interesting tomb nonetheless.

Afterward, our driver took us through desert country. Soon, a bunch of Egyptian officers in a police truck showed up next to our car. One of the officers got out and discussed something in Arabic with our driver. Some kind of agreement had been made, it seemed, although the three of us had no idea what it was. The police pulled ahead of us and we began to follow them. Maybe after a half hour, forty-five minutes, the guys started to get a little worried. Any assumptions we could have made about a friendly police escort were fading away. Once, our driver stopped the car and yelled "emshee", the Arabic version of "go away", to the police officers. But they didn't leave. Instead, they seemed to be driving us in circles. Even when we entered the city of Fayoum, our path had no sense of coherence. All the while we could see the police officers smiling at us from their truck. It seemed increasingly possible that we were being harassed. We tried to ask the driver what was going on, but his English was so poor that we couldn't understand him.

Emotionally, things began to escalate. Gaby wanted to get cracking immediately on our options. He called home while Eric looked up a number for the Israeli consulate. I was in a different place altogether, for a couple reasons. 1) As a personality trait in general, I get pretty removed from the danger of an unstable situation. A falling tree limb landing right beside me, a speeding car almost hitting me (true stories both)--for some reason don't make my heart speed up. So that numbness was there. 2) We had been on the road a long time with the police, but I just wasn't getting the vibe that they were trying to do us any harm. It wasn't necessarily a smarter or more effective role to play, but I was not down for freaking out. I tried my best to keep myself involved in the process for the guys' sake while never really feeling that sharper edge in my attitude. Whether that calm was an asset or a hindrance to our group was still up in the air.

We stopped once, and the police stopped maybe 50 yards ahead, backed up, and parked behind us. The driver told Gaby to get out and come with him inside a store to pick up some food, leaving Eric and I in the back seat. We gave the consulate a couple of tries on the phone, with no success. After a while I got restless. I told Eric I was getting out to join the guys in the store and that he should come. He hesitated: We had no idea what kind of situation we were in. The police had been tailing us or leading us for at least an hour. I told him it was still fine to get out of the car for two minutes, but I saw a real strain in his face after I did. I wasn't making this ridiculous situation any easier for him, so I stayed put. Eventually Gaby and the driver came back with food. We were off again, the police in tow.

The driver stopped us again at some place we didn't recognize. A gate with two booths on either side, Egyptian security in both places. By now I was pretty frustrated, wanted the guys to calm down, and wanted to step up a little since Eric and Gaby had been doing it so much all trip. I got out of the car walked up to one of the booths for help, but no dice--the guy didn't speak English. Eric and Gaby joined me for the second booth, but the guys inside that one couldn't help us either. I think somewhere in all this we figured out that we had stopped at the water springs Ramadan had promised us. Whatever the case, it didn't matter. By now the police had officially ruined our trip. Eric and Gaby had already started talking about how they wanted their money back from Ramadan. We got back into the car and the driver took us to our final destination:

Lake Qarun. The Oasis.

...Where things, poetically enough, calmed down. Ramadan had been right about the looks of the place: absolutely gorgeous. The water was blue, chill, extremely calm. There was a restaurant on the lake that Ramadan had promised. No one else was there, which probably helped calm things down even more. The sun was shining, our waitress was nice, and there was an element of pause that hadn't been there before. Of course, the police were still parked nearby, but for the moment we had a breather.

As we waited for our food to come, Gaby called Ula (spelling, again, horribly off), a friend of ours from the hostel in Dahab. After Ula spoke in Arabic with our driver, the phone went back to Gaby. Eric and I watched as Gaby's entire demeanor changed. "Ohhhh," Gaby said, finally breaking out into a smile. That's the Gaby I know. Seeing him unhappy is pretty weak, and whatever Ula was explaining to him, I was relieved it was good news.

Gaby hung up and relayed the details. Turned out Egyptian police were required by law to escort American tourists (outside of Cairo, I guess). The fact that the police had been tagging on was a good thing. They had been taking us to our tourist spots to ensure our safety. After the three of us laughed about it for a sec, I said to Gaby, "You still want your money back?" Without missing a beat, he said yes, and explained why. In his opinion (and Eric agreed), Ramadan had not given us our money's worth. Instead of providing us with someone who was a good English speaker as promised, Ramadan had actually put us in harm's way by giving us a driver who couldn't communicate with us. Our enjoyment of the trip had actually depended on this guy being able to relay simple details, and Gaby believed it was irresponsible of Ramadan to leave us in a semi-dangerous situation with no solid reference points. So he and Eric decided they were going to talk to Ramadan once we got back home.

And you guys know me. I was [enter self-deprecating statement about being too passive here].

The food was all right, but the boat ride in the lake stole the show. Just beforehand, though, Gaby got into a bit of a toughie with the guy who told us the price for the boat ride. Our driver had told Gaby it was too expensive, so Gaby went with it. Thing was, I was already in the boat, our rower was ready to go, and Gaby was still up for negotiating. The combination of Gaby's usual discontentment with price figures and the fact we had just been through so much drama with the police car was making me impatient. Just when things hit their peak though, somehow we worked out an agreement, Gaby got into the boat with Eric and I, and we were off.

There were about fifteen minutes of peace and quiet. I really, really liked it.

The water.

Our rower.

Back at the hostel, I collapsed on my bed. The three of us had had a kind of dinner appointment with a guy we met on the street, but I was too exhausted to go. Let me back up for a second. He was a guy we had seen every other day we'd been at the hostel, selling cigarettes nearby on the sidewalk. His name, I'm not sure of. The previous day, he saw the three of us and told us that we should meet him for Ramadan break fast next time. The guy was a little sketch, and we weren't so sure of his mental condition, but he really did seem nice enough. We all agreed to meet him for dinner. So you can imagine my guilt when I woke up from my half-nap, too late for dinner with him. I hustled downstairs and found the guy in his usual spot...you know what? I'm tired of not using a name. We're gonna call him the Marlboro Man, on account of the cigarettes. MM. M&M. Eminem. Done.

I met Eminem at his stand and told him that I was sorry we couldn't make it that evening. He looked slightly disappointed, but he said that he wanted us to come the next day. I considered it a deal.

And now, the moment you've been waiting for. The sit-down talk with Ramadan about giving our money back. The three of us sat across from him, no one else in the lobby, boys versus man, high noon, Clint Eastwood music, minus the last two. We tried explaining what happened diplomatically, but Ramadan pretty much told us to cut to the chase. I guess things really got cracking when Gaby said, "You lied to us!" Physical finger-pointing, raised voice, the works. And of course the "lie" being that Ramadan had promised us a good English speaker. Ramadan didn't yell back or anything, but things were certainly tense in the room. Gaby turned on the verbal afterburners, Eric wasn't far behind him, and I watched as Ramadan stiffened. After a while, I stepped in. Here's some paraphrasing:

"Ramadan, we're not saying that you ripped us off. The previous two days have been amazing. But my friends were scared during our trip today, and that's not what they paid for." Or something like that. Sprinkle in a few more compliments about how great he had treated us beforehand (no BS). And all of a sudden Ramadan was saying, "What this man [me] is saying is fair. I'll do whatever this man says."

As nice as that may sound, there were two essential problems. The first was that Ramadan was counting on me not asking him for full reimbursement. The second was that I was suddenly in a position I wasn't ready for. I was proud that I had calmed things down and steered the discussion in a reconciliatory direction, but that hadn't really changed the basics. My friends still wanted their money back. Ramadan still thought he was being cheated out of it. In the end I didn't really do much other than clarify why Eric and Gaby were so pissed off. Ramadan gave us back enough money to cover the meal at the restaurant (which was part of the original deal anyway), and that was it. Gaby agreed to it (and later discovered it was less money than he'd heard), Eric went with it presumably because the discussion wasn't going any further, and I was just looking for some shalom. We strongly suggested that Ramadan let other Americans know exactly what the circumstances were with similar trips. He said he would. Crisis averted. Ish.

Later, Eric said he had definitely seen our American Idol judges all come out during the Ramadan thing. He also seemed disappointed that we hadn't gotten our money back. I kind of felt bad about that one, since I had taken the lead straight into No-Reimbursement-Ville.

At night the three of us went out to the main market. I let myself get ripped off by a couple of people while Gaby and Eric kicked some serious bargain booty. One time, some guy sweet talked me with how much he knew about my hometown as I pondered over a souvenir to buy for family/friends. I knew he ripped me off a bit, so I weakly kind of pleaded a bargain, and he budged. Emasculation at its best. Later on, Gaby came back to the same guy while I was there. He bargained over some object he only half-cared about, but seemed to have fun fighting for. At one point, the salesman told Gaby he'd give him a certain price, because he bought it for that price. Gaby asked him why he would sell it to him if there was no profit...basically calling him on his crap. Two minutes later the guy folded and Gaby walked away with a new souvenir for a great price. I remember feeling pretty embittered in knowing that I had, in fact, been played by this salesman--which was made more than clear when Gaby handled his business.

Toward the conclusion of our time in the market, I split off from the guys for a second and went inside a mosque. It was beautiful inside, green carpet, bowing men, sacred air. I had no idea what I was doing, but I decided I wanted to pray like I saw the Muslims were. I kneeled and bowed my own head, whispering words to God. After a bit, I walked into a room that I saw people trickling into. I passed a couple guys at the entrance, hoped the didn't stop me (they didn't), and saw something strange in front of me. Inside a giant glass case in the middle of the room, was a large black box. A tomb of some sort? I wasn't sure. People had formed a ring around the protective banister, praying to/about this thing, reaching their hands toward it. I circled it and sat down, looking through a Koran, glancing up at the people near the black box. There was a desperate faith in the atmosphere as people revered that thing, and I was sad that I couldn't understand what was happening.

Outside, some guy pressured me into buying two small bottles of anointing oil. Retrospect says I should not have paid ten Egyptian pounds for them.

The next day, we decided to play it cool, take it easy. We shamelessly walked into American restaurants, where I got a Phili cheese steak and the guys got something from Pizza Hut. I was getting somewhat impatient with Egypt, and I guess this was my way of saying a kind of peace out to the cultural experience. Afterward, walking toward the Nile, Eric and Gaby started talking about personal stuff Eric was dealing with, in a slightly hushed tone. I definitely got the vibe the matter was private. Kept ahead of them. On top of the backseat role I had taken all trip, the nights I chose to turn in early while they went out to get drinks, etcetera...this 2 + 1 walk toward the Nile didn't feel too good either. I knew it wasn't intentional. Still, the separation I was feeling just then kind of tainted the morning.

Anyway, when we reached the Nile, one of the boatmen came toward us. He said a price, and as usual, I was hesitant, and Gaby wrestled a cheap price out of him.

"I don't know what I'd do without you guys," I said.

Eric, capturing the moment.

The Nile. Pretty dirty up close.

But still money on the whole.

Afterward, Gaby had to pee. So we all walked into a hotel like we were staying there and hijacked their bathroom. After we were done, we met met someone just outside the hotel. It was a short, older guy--whose name was Max, I think--who began talking to us. He asked the usual small talk questions and threw a few gold nuggets into the convo: 1) His daughter was getting married tomorrow. 2) He was a renowned artist in Cairo. 3) He wanted us to have the equivalent of tea time with him in his shop. I was pretty taken by Max's amiability and hospitality. The three of us went to his papyrus shop, where he arranged chairs for us. His daughter was there, helping out with the shop.

I congratulated her. She gave a somewhat meek thank you.

Before the drinks came, Max had us look at his papyrus work. It became extremely clear, very fast, what Max had done. While I had thought that he had genuinely wanted to drink some tea with strangers, he had only been pulling us in to sell us papyrus. Maybe that was obvious to all of you worldly-wise folks out there. I, for one, hadn't seen it coming...although there had been so many similar circumstances beforehand that I probably should have known better.

Max was pretty persistent about selling us his work. I tried to make it clear to him that I wasn't buying anything, but he wasn't having it. Eric showed a vague interest in buying something, which encouraged Max more. After maybe fifteen minutes of Max's slightly aggressive tactics, I'd had enough. "I don't want to waste your time," I said slowly, repeating again that I wasn't interested. Eventually Eric decided not to buy anything either, so the three of us split. The chipper tone to Max's voice had gone completely flat by the time it was time to say goodbye. As we walked away from the shop, we noticed Max come out of the store again. It looked like he was waiting for someone new to come by, to give them the same routine.

Eric threw it out there that his daughter probably wasn't even getting married.

We caught a cab to the Mohammed Ali Mosque, or "the citadel." Biggest mosque in Cairo, if not Egypt--I can't remember. Unfortunately, the mosque closed by the time we got there. It was, however, pretty to look at from the outside.

Another shot I stole from Eric.

Just assume all the good ones are his.

We did have one, last hope about closing out the day. Gaby's friend Georgia suggested that we try to find a spot near the mosque where we could sit and here the Muslim call to prayer among all the citadels of the city. The prospect seemed beautiful enough to shoot for. We went walking around the block, trying to find the place Georgia had described.

It was looking pretty bleak when we ran into a stranger on the street. Young guy, great English, extremely nice. I guess he saw that I didn't know where I was going, and out of apparent friendliness he asked me the "African question." So silly: if anyone asked me if I was African in the States, our conversation would end very, very quickly. But, like in Dahab, being asked here really felt good. Anyway, I told him what our deal was. He gave us some pointers on what mosque was open, and the three of us were really appreciative. Out of nowhere, it seemed, he said he could lead us there by foot, but that we just didn't have that much time. He introduced himself as Omar (or something close). We followed him toward this new mosque, where he promised a view from the rooftop that would dazzle.

Omar was making a great impression on us the entire time. He made conversation with us the entire way through a maze of alleyways, smiling a lot. He kept repeating that he was not like other Egyptians, who were just trying to get money from us. He assured us that he was just being hospitable. On top of the favor he was doing us now, he also offered to have us over for break fast. It sounded awesome, but I remembered that we had promised Eminem that we would break the fast with him that evening. I tried to explain to Omar that we had prior plans. Eric and Gaby did not back me up.

I tried to level with both of them while Omar was ahead. The two of them weren't quite with me. Admittedly, I guess I was kind of swept off my feet by this Omar guy, too. He was promising his mother's fantastic cooking, guiding us to this mosque out of some altruistic duty, and just being pleasant company in general. I couldn't shake the promise to Eminem, though. I gave Eric a WTF look and later on probably said something like, "I'm going home, you guys can stay." It wasn't that I didn't want to go with this new stranger, it was that I wasn't down for going against my word. Eric and Gaby countered: while I had crashed in my room the previous day, they had checked around for Eminem at dinner time. He hadn't been around. Bottom line: I was trying to make up for missing dinner with Eminem, while the guys didn't think he was reliable anyway.

The Eric Glover Line of Reasoning: Didn't matter. Your word is your word.

Omar led us into a mosque that was in a residential neighborhood. We took off our shoes and followed him across the carpet and to a small room on the side of the building. Inside, Omar talked to us about donating to the mosque in order to help out a charitable fund of theirs. Apparently, an earthquake that had struck the neighborhood (years ago) was still having some affect on the residential area's children. Of course, there was some confusion given the language barrier--all we really got out of it was that it was "for the children," without any real details as to how it would help them. Omar had brought us into the side room because that's where the donation box was. Two men, seemingly out of nowhere, appeared on either side of our trio, asking us to to donate. Verbally, the pressure was mounting. For each of us, freely donating was not a problem. But Omar hadn't made it clear that it was a requirement for seeing the rooftop. Plus, these guys were asking for a fixed donation minimum that was far above "easy giving." Eric and I managed to bail on the obligation, but once those guys figured out Gaby had shekels they would not stop pressuring him until he coughed up the money. After that, they backed off.

Omar showed us the way to the staircase. The three of us went up to the rooftop, where we could see the sun setting over the neighborhood.

Gaby walked off across the rooftop, silent. I would have gone to comfort him had I not been pissed off myself. I was done with Egypt. I was tired of the manipulation behind engaging us as tourists. Omar had seemed like an exception, but he was just another shark--one who had cost Gaby a lot of money. I was disgusted, disappointed, and ready to leave.

Eric picked up on how I was feeling, asking me what was up.

"They always want something," I said.

After Omar had swindled Gaby's money, we left without taking his break fast invitation. Gaby didn't talk during the entire ride back.

When we were dropped off at the hostel, we checked to see if Eminem had food ready for us, like I'd hoped. He had completely forgotten.

Later, in our hostel room, Eric could tell I was pretty bummed and checked on me again. I remember really appreciating that. Out of all the crap that had happened that day, it felt good to have him ask what was up.

We went out later, got some mediocre dinner of our own, and contemplated seeing an American movie, which never worked out. The next day we woke up early and our friend Shaggy helped us get out to our minibus on time.

It felt so good to come back to Israel. As we ate at a restaurant in Eilat, the sudden reinsertion into Hebrew was a welcome change. I thought I knew so little Hebrew, but being back around the language felt so much more familiar than it had before, compared to Arabic. And coming back to the dorm, seeing my roommates--it felt safe and exciting to see them all again. It felt like home.

I wish I could tell you guys a slightly sweeter ending to the whole Egypt trip. But the truth is, the place left a bitter taste in my mouth. I look back on the experience with mixed feelings. Not only because I was absolutely sick of how people treated us, but because I saw that there was a ton of room for improvement in the Eric Glover department. On the other hand, I was so happy to have seen everything I did, and to share that experience with Eric and Gaby. The two of them are great guys, and I learned a lot from them during the trip. Eventually, I hope to put what I've learned to use.

Let's hope it doesn't take too long.

Shalom,
Eric