Bad Ambassadors

Stones, a Knife, a Jacket

We'd been in Alexandria for about three weeks and were only five minutes' walk from our flat when a gang of boys, averaging twelve years' old, began following us along the backstreets and hollering obscenities. There was hardly anyone else around. We ignored it and continued walking, but when the first stones overtook us, skidding in the dust, Ben turned and yelled at them to clear off. This only inflamed the situation, and the snarling got louder, and soon they began hitting their targets, albeit our boots or trousers. It only abated once we had reached the main thoroughfare and the safety of crowds. Because it was so early in our year and so close to our home, we were crestfallen and feared that this was merely the baptism of what might become a habitual practice. It wasn't. It never did happen again, fortunately. Perhaps word got around, and the boys were scolded. Perhaps it just took a few weeks to establish that we weren't tourists and that we were fairly harmless. Perhaps our Egyptian friends' endorsement prevented any further stirrings. Who knows!

***

If we'd thought that crowds were a guarantee of safety from that experience, we were to find ourselves proven wrong later on in the year. We were walking along Gamela Abou Hred to the tram, weaving our way through the pedestrian traffic when a gang of lads blocked our path. By then, we had become masters of getting from A to B without becoming conversationally snared, so we smiled and emitted the chaff of non-committal Arabic pleasantries − "Salaam alaikum; Kaif Halak?" – and tried to walk around them. As we did this, however, they side-stepped to cross our path. We stopped, smiled and attempted to pass them on the other side, but they once again side-stepped across, grinning as they did. They kept up this side-stepping comedy routine a couple more times, but despite surface smiles, the subtext felt malign. This was confirmed moments later when their ringleader, a beady-eyed youth, pulled out a four-inch knife. His eyes flicked between us. None of the others flinched at the sudden escalation. We stood there forming a circular island against the flow of oblivious passers-by. My response was instinctive, intuitive. Ben would ask me afterwards, "What exactly did you say to them?" First of all, it was impossible to ignore the sharp, glinting elephant in the room, so I tackled it straight on. I didn't know the word for knife, but I knew from living in our neighbourhood that "Seouf" meant "swords" and that "sief" was the singular, so I said, "Ana aheb sief!" − I like sword! "Sief kabir!" – big sword! – I added, grinning. Edgy smiles became genuine. "Isme Stuart." I pointed at myself. "Ismak eh?" I asked the beady-eyed youth. He told me his name, and I held out my hand. He shook it. "Hoa Ben," I continued. As I piled on the small talk, it soon became apparent that they knew barely a word of English, so I kept going until I had thoroughly exhausted my short supply of Arabic. Ben looked on, a passenger in all this. The knife had long ago disappeared. We parted with more handshakes and a "Ma salama", and that was that.

When we catch up, Ben often brings up this story, still uncertain about how it exactly resolved itself. It depends on the way you look at it. On the one hand, if there had been a truly malicious intent, then you could see it as bluff on my part, a confidence trick to remove ourselves from harm's way, an example of how the pen is mightier than the sword! On the other hand, you could see it, as I do, as nothing more than an opportunistic attempt at getting the attentions of two white Englishmen by youths who had no other means to do so. Maybe, this is just my stubborn refusal to accept it for what it was.

***

As to intent, with this next incident, it was clear-cut. We were approaching the end of our year in Egypt. It was night time, the streets were deserted and we were heading home to our flat, which was a couple of blocks away, when two Arabs walked around the corner slurring their words in rowdy conversation. When they realised that we were foreigners, they deviated from their path and walked right up to us. They reeked of alcohol. One of them started to inspect Ben's jacket, and within seconds he was demanding in Arabic that Ben give it to him. 

Ben shook his head smiling, "Sorry, I need it."

The man then began barking at Ben to hand it over.

"I don't think so!" Ben replied firmly.

Next, the man tried to physically take Ben's jacket off of him, but Ben stood his ground, brushing his hands away.

We backed away as the man unleashed a torrent of vitriol.

"Just give him your jacket, Ben," I said.

"No! It's my good jacket."

"It's not worth all this," I said as the man swore and gestured.

"It's mine. He's not having it."

The man now squared up to Ben, spitting words in his face, and shoving him with his palm.

I tried talking our way out of the situation, but it was futile: the man wasn't listening. He wanted the jacket and wasn't going to budge. By now lights had begun to flick on in the flats above us, and a woman, drawn by the commotion, opened her window shutters and leant out to see what was going on. Once she had assessed the situation, she started yelling at the two men. The man didn't immediately react, but his partner began urging him to leave the scene. Eventually, the woman's yells drove them off, and we thanked her afterwards: "Shukran. Shukran."

You had to hand it to Ben for his nerve!