Talk Like An Egyptian
Trip Start
May 23, 2005
1
31
36
Trip End
Mar 25, 2006
Flores,
Guatemala
Wednesday, February 8, 2006
sunset
. So maybe it is just the latitude that is helping me feel closer to home then ever. Or the Guatemalan food, which reminds me of the food of San Francisco's Mission district more than anywhere else. In Guatemala I don't seem to be receiving as many strange looks from people as I did in other Central American countries. There are at least two reasons for this. Number one: Guatemala is absolutely swarming with Gringos so the local population is definitely used to seeing the likes of blonde backpackers like me. Number two: I probably am eliciting as many stares as anywhere else - I have just gotten used to it. Now I just shoot them right back much of the time. But every now and again something still shocks me into remembering that I am still far, far from home and that I am still a gringo (I haven't looked in the mirror for quite a while so I don't know for sure). More than once in the last couple weeks a child has approached me either begging or selling something. After talking to them for a little bit they sometimes notice the blonde hair on my arms. I am not an extremely hairy guy; I definitely have more hair than the average prepubescent boy and less than the average monkey. But something about the blonde hair seems to amaze children in Central America. Having been in this situation before in other countries, I am usually one step ahead of the child's request for a donation of one arm or leg hair
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. So I often pluck one out and hand it to them. A young girl will generally just look at it with a shriveled face while a young boy will place the hair on his own arm and look for a method of somehow temporarily attaching it to himself.Sometimes, on some of the more remote islands in Indonesia, groups of young boys would approach me on the beach. I would then awake to them giggling and pointing at my legs. Oh, the hair. Yeah, I guess that is kind of funny. They would usually ask for a gift and I would have to pull out a leg hair for each kid in the group. Then they would compare to see who received the longest hair. Finally each kid would vainly attempt to attach the hair to their legs. When the hair wouldn't stick, they would hold it to their leg with their hands, thank me and trot off awkwardly bent over and still holding the hairs onto themselves as they headed away.
The women in Indonesia were even more impressed with my hairiness. Manliness sounds better. Manliness. One morning I was sitting in the bed of a truck jam-packed with women with huge woven baskets heading to a market to sell their goods. It was obvious that they were all having a conversation about me because every time one of them said something they all looked at me to see if I understood. It was Indonesian so of course I didn't, other than that I knew I was the subject of the conversation. Eventually, after every comment, I would swiftly glance up to catch the gaze of one of them, who would then quickly look the other way. And then another of them would say something and the same process would repeat. The first seven times this game was entertaining enough. But just as I was starting to grow weary of its mind-numbing repetition and wishing they would simply address me on the issue at hand instead of acting like children, my wish came true - the painful way
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. One of the ladies reached over to me and ripped a fistful of hair out of my arm, as if she did not know they were fairly deeply rooted in my skin."Ouch! Those are mine!" I shouted in English, because I as caught so off-guard. All the women erupted in laughter as I grabbed my painfully throbbing arm, shooting a sneer at the lot of them.
"Bagus!" She responded. I had been in Indonesia long enough to know the meaning of that word. It meant 'handsome.' I smiled, surely blushing, as the pain substantially subsided in the wake of such a decidedly direct yet confusingly painful compliment.
After that incident I began to pay more attention and noticed that the Indonesian men - in fact nearly all Southeast Asian men - are relatively hairless. They are lucky if they can grow a thin, wispy moustache to cover a part of their face. And their torsos and limbs are smooth enough to make some western women jealous. I realized that many women in Southeast Asia find body hair to be a sign of masculinity, virility and attractiveness. A word of advice: Instead of scheduling those expensive and painful electrolysis appointments to rid yourself of the carpet on your back use the money for an inexpensive jaunt to Thailand where the true outer you will be appreciated.
The Indonesians were not so enthralled with my body hair simply because it existed. From what I could tell, they were equally fascinated by the fact that it was blonde. I was aware that having blonde hair entering Asia would be an inconvenience, to say the least, so I went to great lengths to hide it. Before arriving in Turkey I dyed my hair the jettest of blacks in order to arouse less suspicion. This plan failed miserably as my short, unnaturally black hair, blue eyes and white skin simply made me look like a clean-cut, sold-out Goth.
I learned along my way through the Middle East that it is really better to hide as much of your western ways as is possible. For several valid reasons people throughout most of the world have certain stereotypes of westerners. My buddy Dean, the Englishman, and I were often asked in rural areas in Egypt by joking locals if we were Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. Clearly, the Egyptians hadn't seen many white folks before because the likeness of Dean and me to these celebrities is laughingly distant. But apparently they had all seen loads of Hollywood flicks.
Dean and I spent one afternoon leading into an evening in the Cairo suburb of Giza, taking pictures of the great pyramids in the fading twilight. We paid a small baksheesh to ascend to the top of a store owner's building at sunset for a superb view of the huge structures at dusk. By the time we came down from the building it was dark and all the tourist buses and public transportation from the pyramids had retreated the 15 kilometers or so back to Cairo. Far too cheap to hail a cab, we thought maybe we would hitch a ride back to the hotel. Surely a kind-hearted Egyptian with a very strong anti-American posture would be willing to pick up these two western infidels in order to scream at us about Israel for 15 minutes or so - as was the standard in Egypt - and then drop us off at our hotel with a cheerful smile and a wave goodbye.
Sure enough, after just five minutes of hand gesturing on the side of the freeway leading into Cairo, a young guy stopped. He had two other young men with him and told us he had to drop them off in a nearby neighborhood and then he could take us to Cairo. Dean and I were a little concerned about the side trip to the slums but we played along. In the world of budge travel, saving five dollars on a cab ride is always worth putting your life on the line. We pulled into a dark, dirt-road neighborhood and made turns onto narrow, shady alleys lined with 2 story buildings. Finally the car came to a halt and we piled out. The driver seemed eager to practice his English.
"This is my cousin's mobile phone store." (Anyone who is not in your immediate family is your cousin in the third world.) There were several other young guys loitering in the poorly lit, extremely under-stocked store. They offered us a Pepsi. We felt like we had to decline based on their apparent economic level. But they brought us two Pepsis despite our refusal. We tried to pay. Then it was their turn to decline. We put our money away. My buddy Adam is a proponent of a unique travel philosophy he calls serendipity. This was one of those serendipitous situations. It was time to accept our good fortune of having met these locals of such a generous nature and enjoy the unplanned time and experience. These guys only wanted to chat and practice their English with some native speakers. For the price of nothing more than a couple of Pepsis they had a captive western duo in which to talk about anything and everything that had been on their minds. In a room of seven young men in an extremely conservative and sexually repressed society, it did not take long for the topic of conversation to find its way to what was most important: Sex.
"How many women you have done sex to?" Our driver questioned me frankly and out of nowhere. I was unprepared.
"Some."
Before he even had time to digest or ponder my purposefully vague response he was already in the process of boasting to me.
"I did sex to six French women," he proudly stated.
"Six?" I thought it better to question the amount than to correct his awkward use of language.
"Yes."
Had I believed him I would have assumed these six encounters were all on separate occasions rather than all at once. But I was exceedingly skeptical. Upon opening my second Pepsi I dug deeper in my questioning. It turns out that our friend thought he had 'done sex to' six French women. But in reality he didn't know the difference between a French kiss and a French 'more than kiss.' With further prodding he admitted that he had kissed six French girls, which he considered to be sex. I was fascinated by his lack of sexual education so I took advantage of the opportunity to ask a question of my own - one which had been burning in my mind ever since I arrived in the Middle East and had seen how western women were constantly pestered and touched inappropriately by the men in the region. I tried to put it mildly so as not to insult our hosts.
"Why do you guys always try to talk to the western girls?" By this I meant 'Why do you sexually harass any western woman who walks within a kilometer of you?' He was quick to answer.
"I talk to a blonde woman or an American woman because if I do there is a very good chance I can do sex to her."
"A very good chance? Why do you say that?"
"Because all American and European women are prostitutes."
I was shocked! How could he possibly believe this? Then I thought. All the females I had met traveling in the Middle East had registered the same complaint to me: that they were constantly bothered, groped and yelled at by the local men. And that they were basically being treated like whores. I was offered a third Pepsi and, despite the growing pressure in my bladder, I accepted. This was just getting interesting. I asked our driver why he thought that all westerners were hookers.
"It is very clear. Look at the movies!"
He was right. If the only exposure I had to western society was to the media that is exported - namely movies, music and magazines - I would probably come to the same conclusion. In every movie he had seen, the gratuitous number of occurrences of sex, drugs and violence which transpired was thousands of times higher than its incidence in actual western society. With this kind of exposure I couldn't blame him or anyone else in the world for having this perception. I learned later that an incredible amount of pornographic cinema is imported into sexually conservative Egypt, showing only western girls 'in action,' which reinforces the stereotype to the sex-starved Egyptians that foreigner equals prostitute.
Back in the car and about to pee my pants from the consumption of a gratuitous amount of Pepsi products, the gentlemen were kind enough to drive us all the way into downtown Cairo. And not a word about Israel. When we tried to offer payment for gas they insisted against it. Another lesson in serendipity.
In Egypt I learned quickly not to divulge that I was a citizen of the United States. Generally, dogs receive more respect than Americans from Egyptians. My status in their society was somewhere well below the status of a donkey, which is midrange, and quite a bit above that of an Egyptian woman, which is near the bottom. In my opinion the donkeys are much freer and better off than the women in Egyptian society. They go outside more, have to cover up less, eat quite well and, despite the frequent stick beatings, seem to tolerate less abuse overall.
Despite having sewn a Canadian flag on my backpack, walking through the streets in many cities, Egyptian men would aggressively approach me and bluntly demand to know, "Where you from?" Obviously I steered clear of admitting to be American. But besides 'USA,' no matter which answer I responded with, would invariably elicit some sort of response from the questioner: Always a stereotype and always hilarious. Dean and I decided to use this knowledge to our advantage. Obviously, Egyptian men would not know if we were telling the truth about where we were from or not. By answering with the name of a different country every time, we could find out the world stereotypes for each country. Even more importantly, we would also learn the response which would cause the least angry reaction or political outburst among Egyptian men. Clearly, the US, Britain and Israel were all not to be used. These countries only generated the types of reactions we were hoping to avoid. So we started with some simple ones.
"Where you from?" demanded a man outside of his store.
"Canada!" we chanted in unison, happy for the question.
"Very cold," he said, making a shivering motion while crossing his arms. This game was excellent!
"Where you from?" the next guy we passed in the street would ask.
"France!" we screamed.
"Good wine." We cracked up.
"Where you from?" a few blocks on.
"Australia, mate!"
"Australia very far." Wow, they knew their countries. We tried a trick.
"Where you from?"
"Egypt!" we answered with confidence.
"NOOOOOOO!" he said, shaking his finger. Ooh, they are good. Over a few days we must have tried almost every European country and drawn every country-related response, until we finally came upon the winners.
"Where you from?"
"Liechtenstein," we calmly stated, attempting not to give ourselves away by laughing.
Blank stare.
Well, they cannot be expected to know Liechtenstein. There are Europeans who don't know of Liechtenstein. One more try.
"Where you from?"
"Switzerland," we voiced slowly and mysteriously.
A shrug of the questioner's shoulders as if he was on to our game but could only signal, 'I got nothing on Switzerland.'
From now on if push came to shove we were Swiss.
