28. Cairo, 1996 — But you’re white
In which Eleanor turns taxicabs into classrooms.
In Cairo's taxis, conversations flow as freely as the Nile. What is Eleanor really learning here? 
Eleanor
I hail a taxi from outside of the Council for my bimonthly meeting with Magda. A typically battered and beaten one pulls over within seconds, its black and white paint scratched and dented in a thousands places. I get in, carefully swinging my skirt clear of the door and underneath my legs. The upholstery is splitting in half a dozen places, and the stuffing is showing. Nothing unusual there. Nor the absence of air-conditioning.
“The South African Embassy in Giza, please,” I say in Arabic, and I give the street address. Not that that means anything. I also give the nearest intersection, and that it’s just south of the zoo. One navigates Cairo by landmarks, maybe by street names, never by street number.
The driver’s dashboard is festooned with the usual—prayer beads hanging from the mirror, and a piece of sheepskin on top of the dashboard. The boxy fare meter is mounted in the center. I don’t need to ask—I know it will not work; they never do. And even if it did, neither the driver nor I would pay it any attention anyway. Taxi fares in Cairo are strictly a negotiated thing. If you’re Egyptian, you pay one fare. If you’re a foreigner, your rate depends on the fluency of your Arabic, which is short-hand for how long you’ve lived here. And if you’re a tourist, most especially an American one—well then the cab driver has hit the jackpot. Before we pull away from the curb, the driver names a price. I name another. He comes back with something lower than his original price, but higher than mine. I calmly repeat my number. And we’re done. We’ve played the game. He knows that I know what the appropriate rate for me to pay is.
We pull away from the curb and I settle in for what comes next.
“Where are you from?”
“South Africa”.
A look in the review mirror as he looks back at me.
“But you’re white.”
“Yes, I’m a white South African.”
“Really South African? Nelson Mandela?
“Yes, really South African. Nelson Mandela.”
And another incredulous look back through the rearview mirror at me. I can practically see the cogs working in his brain as he absorbs this idea—that there is such a thing as white South Africans. Even after six months in Cairo it still mystifies me that they can know who Nelson Mandela is, and not get that there must, by definition, be white South Africans.
Race is just as much a fact of life in Egypt as in South Africa—just on a less overt level. On the top, the wealthy, upper-class, “noble” families—who are generally closer to northern European in skin tone. In the middle, educated Egyptians who range from a fairly deep Mediterranean olive skin tones to northern European skin-tones. On the bottom, the bawaab, zabaleen, and falaheen, the working class poor, garbage collectors and rural villagers respectively, who tend to be darker still. And below them all, the statuesque, deep ebony-skinned Dinka refugees from Sudan.
Then the conversation shifts.
“You speak good Arabic.”
“Thank-you.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Six months.”
“You speak very good Arabic!”
I know I don’t, and that the flattery is all there to get me to bump up what I will pay at the end. I will anyway.
“Your family?”
“In South Africa”
“Brothers, sisters?
“Two brothers.”
“Where do you live in Cairo?”
“Zamalek.”
An appreciative look back at me through the rearview mirror again. Zamalek, and Ma’adi, where the Ambassador lives — these are two of the most exclusive areas of Cairo. But where Zamalek is “old money” and “old families”, Ma’adi is newer and more cosmopolitan. It’s where many of the diplomats and other expatriates live.
And that completes the ritual. From here, conversation might shift to where he’s from, his family, what sights I’ve been to so far (most of them), what I like most about Cairo or music (if I recognize a song I might sing a long a bit when I can, I’ve come to enjoy Arabic pop music). Taxi rides are a great place to practice my Arabic. I pick up some new word just about every trip. I find taxi drivers are more willing than merchants in the souq to stick with Arabic for some reason—even while their broken English is still better than my Arabic. Maybe it’s because we’ve already agreed on the price, now we can just settle in for a conversation. When I get stuck for a word, they gamely help me out.
Once I had a hilarious, gap-toothed old driver, who wagged his finger at me and told me he could find me a nice Egyptian husband. We’d both laughed. I’ve come to understand that Egyptians actually have a great sense of humor—especially slapstick comedy. They adore a good joke. Sadly my Arabic doesn’t extend as far as telling jokes yet.
Soon we’re pulling up at the gleaming office tower where the Embassy is located. I pay, with a healthy tip, and walk into its air conditioned crispness.
Sometimes I think I prefer the Egypt out there, than the Egypt in here.
Its realer.
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Book Club #3: Saturday January 4, 2025
Young Diplomats in a Young Democracy
It was the dawn of the new era. Freedom had come. And we were young and literally right there, starting our careers as diplomats.
Sober? Generally. Sedate? Sometimes. Hopeful? Overflowing.
Our guests this month are Linford Andrews, now head of Electoral Support at The Commonwealth, and Ingrid Kirsten, who’s career has focussed on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.
