The Adventure Begins

Got in last night. So much to write about already. I hate to launch into this without giving background, but this entry is going to be long enough as it is, so it'll have to wait.

An old guy waving an AUC placard picked us all up from the airport and shepherded us through immigration. The assistance wasn’t really necessary, as the guy stamping my passport literally didn’t even glance at it. I wanted to get some Egyptian currency in the airport, but the AUC guy told us to do exactly what he said and nothing else. I snuck off to the bathroom when he wasn’t looking and found myself in a strange situation. I walked in and an airport employee standing inside pointed me to a urinal. I used it while he watched. He then pointed me to the sink. I used that. He then handed me a paper towel. After I threw that away he looked at me expectantly and said something about a tip. I told him I didn’t have any Egyptian currency. He said “Euros, euros.” I truthfully told him I didn’t have any of those either and pushed past him after some more arguing. This was my formal introduction to the Arab institution of “baksheesh” – tipping/bribery.

Driving from the airport to the university in a bus loaded with students, I was struck by how similar Cairo looked to a large Western city. There were frequent billboards, though not quite as many as back home (my favorite was an advertisement for Rambo 4, although the Coca-Cola and Samsung ones were pretty good too). There were definitely more mosques and fewer lights than I was used to, but the buildings didn’t strike me as particularly foreign in design. Our luggage churned along in front of us, roped down haphazardly in the back of a pickup truck that we followed. We eventually turned off the highway and down a side street, and I suddenly felt very much out of place. The architecture changed, the buildings looked older, and there were gangs of young men in the streets everywhere, despite the fact that it was almost 1 AM local time. They looked harmless enough, but we would discover otherwise before the night was over.

Arriving at the university dorm, we rounded up our luggage and checked in. Security guards did a quick search of our belongings while we waited for room assignments. I ended up in a quad room with two other students from Georgetown – Mike and Dan – as well as a guy named Louis from Rowan University in Jersey. We dumped our luggage and the headed back downstairs to see about getting some food or exploring. It was close to 2 AM, but I’d slept for several hours in Heathrow and none of us were about to call it quits on our first night. I was also incredibly hungry. We started talking to some guys downstairs who had clearly been around for a while. One of the people most interested in talking was Amir, a Palestinian enrolled full-time at AUC. We Americans wanted to go out for some food and supplies, and Amir was willing to show us around. Nine of us set out in total – six girls, Mike, Amir, and me. After a drawn out stop at a dingy market, we ended up heading for a Hardee’s – not at all what I was expecting for my first meal on Egyptian soil, but everything else was closed and I wasn't going to fuss about it.

This is where everything got crazy. The Hardee’s was at a four way intersection and there were quite a lot of young men hanging around in the streets outside, probably in their late teens. We got to the door and the girls started to go in first, followed by me, and finally Mike and Amir. I made it inside, but when I turned around I suddenly realized that Amir was in the middle of the street with at least ten of the young men swarming him, punching and kicking. I had no idea what was happening. He broke free after fifteen seconds or so and an older man wearing white robes and a headpiece tried to keep the gang off him while two other boys handed him his scarf and parts of his clothing that had been torn. Then he came inside. I asked him if he was alright, what had happened. He said “nothing, no big deal,” but that he was going to go get some friends and come back, so he would have to leave us for a little while. As far as I know, the girls had been ordering food and hadn’t noticed any of this. Amir went back outside and was instantly swarmed again, pushed into the middle of the street and beaten violently. Everyone noticed this time. I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea what the fight was about – I could only guess it had something to do with Amir being Palestinian and the fact that he was wearing a traditional scarf, like the one Arafat always wore (I know, I really should know the name for those things). Regardless, it was fifteen on one and I was afraid Amir would be seriously injured if someone didn’t do something. I started for the door, but a student behind me told me not to go, said this wasn’t our fight. I have to admit my resolution to intervene was hardly firm, and I stayed where I was.

With the help of the white-robed man, Amir escaped again and returned to the restaurant. He was bleeding from the nose, his lip was cut, his shirt was torn, and he was breathing heavily. He said nothing, but went straight to the bathroom, where he stayed for some time. During that interval, Mike explained some of what had happened, as he had seen the whole thing start and tried to pull Amir inside at the beginning. Apparently, some of the young men outside had made lewd comments about the girls we were with as we walked in (this is a common occurrence in Cairo). Mike, who speaks Lebanese Arabic, heard Amir say, “respect yourself,” to them in Arabic. Clearly they were not pleased.

Eventually, Amir came out of the bathroom and we talked to him. The guys were still hanging around by the door, and I got the sense he would have been for continuing the fight if he’d had backup. We persuaded him to tell the Hardee’s manager the situation instead. The manager was extremely helpful. He went outside with Amir and supervised a heated discussion with one of the gang. The manager and Amir came back in after a bit, called the police, and we had an escort out of the restaurant within five minutes. We walked back to the dorm shaken, but without incident. I sat downstairs in the lobby with Mike and two of the girls to finish our food and talk the events over. It was around 4 AM by the time we headed upstairs, but this seems to be a typical, if not early, bedtime for Egyptians on the weekend. The four of us made plans to meet up at 1 PM the next afternoon so we could get out to buy cell phones, but that’s another story entirely.