Bad Ambassadors

Tutoring

"On top of our money from school, we've been approached to do private tutoring with a boy who is about 16 yrs old, so we will help him. Also some friends of [Gamel's] wants [sic] lessons as well, so even though it might be hard work, we will be getting some extra cash. It's our free time though that I am reluctant to part with – we're just so busy working or going out!"

4th Letter home to Mum

It was an art to avoid "the regulars" in our bustling neighbourhood as we passed through it to get to the tram or back again to our flat. We didn't want to be rude, but if we had stopped and spoken to everyone we had known each time, we'd never have gotten anywhere. There was a string of shops beside a roundabout where we had become acquainted with the staff that was a real trap. One strategy that we used was to cross over to the other side of the road, where all the rubbish clustered, and fake a highly spirited conversation together as if we were oblivious to the world around us. (Incidentally, having come from a country with an established culture of public bin usage, we were fascinated that it was the norm for people to drop their rubbish on the street or sidewalk. It would build up all year until there was a big clean up in preparation for the summer.) Our strategy was successful at first, but then they started hollering, whistling and waving their arms at us to get our attentions as we passed by to such an extent that we would have needed to counter it by wearing blinkers and ear muffs in order to pull off the act convincingly, so we crossed back over again. "Sorry, guys, we didn't see you there!"

Waleed ran his dad's shop with a couple of his friends. His neighbour was Raafat, who was big and chunky, sported a mullet and had the most tobacco-stained teeth you've ever seen, and he spoke with a guttural, Frankenstein-like drawl. A picture of him by the fireplace would have kept children away from it. After they'd first brought up the idea of tutoring, I was alarmed at the prospect of finding myself alone in a room with this man, so each time we saw them, I consciously positioned myself so that Ben would be the one fostering a relationship with him, while I stuck like glue to Waleed – gutless, I know! Waleed was first to request some tutoring, and he invited both Ben and me around to his house to teach him and one of his other friends. I'd prepared a lesson in my head, but we realised once we were there that it was just an informal, conversational chat that they wanted, which suited me.

"Today we have 2 more students (they are about 22 yrs old) for private teaching. We are getting between 60-80 p an hour (English money) which is not very much really, but we usually get fed as well which saves us cooking. I was explaining some 'past tense' work to one of them when he just interrupted [the lesson] and went over to the other side of the room. I thought, what have I done wrong? [H]e unrolled a small carpet and started praying to Mecca! It took up another ten mins of time, which was good. After the lesson, we saw them again in the evening, and we drank bottles of Coke in their home, and I clinked and said cheers and the two men said, 'No, don't do that.' First of all, we thought it was against [...] social etiquette to knock bottles together. It then turned out that it was because the bottles break easily if bashed about. We had to chuckle [...]"

My contrivance with Raafat paid off too as he did eventually proposition Ben for tutoring, and after they'd had a few lessons together, he would regularly call Ben his "Sunny Boy". In my mind, I had clearly dodged a bullet. To be fair to him, however, he grew on me as the year went by, and I realised that he was actually a very sweet-natured man and that my fears had been entirely unfounded.

Below is a sketched impression of our local roundabout.