Clusterfuck of internationals celebrates first day of Ramadan in Cairo
So yesterday I put out the word that if anyone wanted to meet up for Iftar, it would be cool to go out. What ended up was a gang of 22 foreigners and not a single Egyptian, roaming the deserted streets of Cairo looking for dinner....
Cairo is amazing during Iftar time - everyone is at home having dinner, or at the mosque, or out the front of the mosque having dinner. What is normally about the loudest, most crowded, noisiest place on earth becomes something that reminds you of a deserted city in the middle of the Amazon, where a once great civilisation stood, but was wiped out by some killer disease almost instantaneously, leaving their great city intact, stores still stocked, doorways still half open, but not a living soul to be seen anywhere.
We went to a typical Cairo food place, a crowded alleyway where you sit on cheap plastic furniture and get awesome grilled meat, salads, dips etc. There was so many of us, and no token local, so I ended up just ordering a whole metric shit-ton of food for everyone to feast on. Once the meet started arriving, it just kept arriving, and arriving, and arriving, until I realised that I had accidentally ordered enough meat to feed a small suburb of Cairo. Oops. Eat up, everyone!
The real Cairo fun started when the meal ended, I asked the guy for the bill, and he gave me a price that sounded more like a phone number. I did a quick double take, and hoping that it was just my crappy Arabic , I asked him again. Nope. He really is asking for a sum of money roughly equivelant to the Egyptian defense budget.
I argued with this insufferable prick for an hour, an entire frigging hour, gradually, step by step, getting the price down to something that we could actually pay for without selling our organs to the highest bidder. After about 45 minutes I had knocked 250 Egyptian Pounds (LE) off the bill, and any Egyptian will understand, that is a lot of frigging money to be getting ripped off by. But I was still at least another 200 pounds away from what we actually owed them, and there was some real heavy lifting ahead.
My Arabic was reaching the end of it abilities, and they were starting to employ the old classic "speak really fast so he doesnt understand" technique that usually freaks out a cocky foreigner who tries to rock the boat. So I put out the big guns. I bust out the Ramadan card.
"How can you be lying and cheating like this on the first day of Ramadan" I say - well I say the closest to this that I can put together with my shitty Arabic.
And the dude is like "Oh its ON NOW...lets fucking RUMBLE" - or something like that, I didnt exactly understand what he was saying but he was getting emotional. Busting out the religion card is a serious move in Egypt, but I knew this bastard was screwing us into the wall, so I had confidence in divine justice backing me up.
Luckily, at that moment, a Hag - a respectable old man of the street - heard the commotion and started approaching us. Great, I think. Some crazy old man is going to start praying at us or something. But instead, he does the most perfect thing I could have imagined. He starts speaking in great English, tells me that he knows these people and their families, and that there must be a misunderstanding, because they would not be cheating me, especially not in Ramadan. The waiter and the manager and all the guys I was arguing with all kind of saluted the guy with some major respect, he sits us all down, and tells me that he will sort out everything.
The moment I tell him the prices they have been charging me, he goes ballistic. He starts schooling all the guys, screaming at them, grabbing one of them by the shoulder and shaking them, and I cant understanding anything except occasionally he is yelling "IN RAMADAN!!! IN RAMADAN!!!!!!" and its pretty obvious that these guys are getting their asses handed to them on a plate by the Hag.
In the end, everything worked out. For the Egyptians reading this, or people who know Egypt, check this shit out - it turned out that after an hour of arguing, the bill went down by 450LE. And this is at like a crappy street grilling place. That guy was about to score probably a whole months salary in rip-off bonus.
It was a great start to Ramadan though. I got to yell at random dudes in Arabic for an hour, I saw an old man flip over a plastic chair in fury while shouting "RAMADAAAN!!! RAMADAAAN!!!!", and we took home about two kilograms of leftover kofta and shish kebab in bulking plastic bags. Does life get any better?
Cairo is amazing during Iftar time - everyone is at home having dinner, or at the mosque, or out the front of the mosque having dinner. What is normally about the loudest, most crowded, noisiest place on earth becomes something that reminds you of a deserted city in the middle of the Amazon, where a once great civilisation stood, but was wiped out by some killer disease almost instantaneously, leaving their great city intact, stores still stocked, doorways still half open, but not a living soul to be seen anywhere.
We went to a typical Cairo food place, a crowded alleyway where you sit on cheap plastic furniture and get awesome grilled meat, salads, dips etc. There was so many of us, and no token local, so I ended up just ordering a whole metric shit-ton of food for everyone to feast on. Once the meet started arriving, it just kept arriving, and arriving, and arriving, until I realised that I had accidentally ordered enough meat to feed a small suburb of Cairo. Oops. Eat up, everyone!
The real Cairo fun started when the meal ended, I asked the guy for the bill, and he gave me a price that sounded more like a phone number. I did a quick double take, and hoping that it was just my crappy Arabic , I asked him again. Nope. He really is asking for a sum of money roughly equivelant to the Egyptian defense budget.
I argued with this insufferable prick for an hour, an entire frigging hour, gradually, step by step, getting the price down to something that we could actually pay for without selling our organs to the highest bidder. After about 45 minutes I had knocked 250 Egyptian Pounds (LE) off the bill, and any Egyptian will understand, that is a lot of frigging money to be getting ripped off by. But I was still at least another 200 pounds away from what we actually owed them, and there was some real heavy lifting ahead.
My Arabic was reaching the end of it abilities, and they were starting to employ the old classic "speak really fast so he doesnt understand" technique that usually freaks out a cocky foreigner who tries to rock the boat. So I put out the big guns. I bust out the Ramadan card.
"How can you be lying and cheating like this on the first day of Ramadan" I say - well I say the closest to this that I can put together with my shitty Arabic.
And the dude is like "Oh its ON NOW...lets fucking RUMBLE" - or something like that, I didnt exactly understand what he was saying but he was getting emotional. Busting out the religion card is a serious move in Egypt, but I knew this bastard was screwing us into the wall, so I had confidence in divine justice backing me up.
Luckily, at that moment, a Hag - a respectable old man of the street - heard the commotion and started approaching us. Great, I think. Some crazy old man is going to start praying at us or something. But instead, he does the most perfect thing I could have imagined. He starts speaking in great English, tells me that he knows these people and their families, and that there must be a misunderstanding, because they would not be cheating me, especially not in Ramadan. The waiter and the manager and all the guys I was arguing with all kind of saluted the guy with some major respect, he sits us all down, and tells me that he will sort out everything.
The moment I tell him the prices they have been charging me, he goes ballistic. He starts schooling all the guys, screaming at them, grabbing one of them by the shoulder and shaking them, and I cant understanding anything except occasionally he is yelling "IN RAMADAN!!! IN RAMADAN!!!!!!" and its pretty obvious that these guys are getting their asses handed to them on a plate by the Hag.
In the end, everything worked out. For the Egyptians reading this, or people who know Egypt, check this shit out - it turned out that after an hour of arguing, the bill went down by 450LE. And this is at like a crappy street grilling place. That guy was about to score probably a whole months salary in rip-off bonus.
It was a great start to Ramadan though. I got to yell at random dudes in Arabic for an hour, I saw an old man flip over a plastic chair in fury while shouting "RAMADAAAN!!! RAMADAAAN!!!!", and we took home about two kilograms of leftover kofta and shish kebab in bulking plastic bags. Does life get any better?
5 Comments:
That was a great story. Would have been good to be there. And well done for keeping him honest.
I never saw the streets of Cairo during Iftar time, but I remember walking around Midan Tahrir at 6:00am on a regular Friday morning. That also was unnaturally quiet and peaceful.
oh gosh....i miss those ripping off situations..believe it or not, but Egys got the same, with a difference that the amount would be less than that :D
kick 'em Tom
ha..ha..ha...this is fucking hillarious
Oh yes... Ramadan, the perfect time to make money on foreigners misfortune :P
Hey Dude,
Great story! As always :)
The only time I got in touch with Ramadan was in Sarajevo. The most cultural experience of all my Central and Eastern European travels. Did you know that when the sun sets in Sarajevo, they launch a huge firework into the sky to announce everyone to start eating? That's just awesome. Maybe that's how it works in all the muslim countries, but for me it was the first and only time with Ramadan.
Hugs,
Mike
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