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There’s only one road rule necessary in a place as lively as
Midan Tahrir at lunchtime — try not to crash head-on into any of the buses, lorries or taxis coming off several angles of this huge roundabout, as everyone barrels quickly down the dusty boulevards into the sprawl beyond. The sunlight adds to the drama, blindingly bright but rendered opaque in the steaming smog of Cairo’s summer.
There’s no relief inside Girgise’s quaintly upholstered and loudly rattling Peugeot 504 taxi, and no windows to wind up against the hectic heat outside. Inside his battered 504, Girgise’s initial gruffness soon dissolves into stereotypically Cairene warmth, that’s literally in-your-face after he finds out his English is far better than my dismal recall of elementary Arabic.
As he avoids a few near misses with oncoming traffic, Girgise turns around every few minutes throughout our journey on Cairo’s boulevards to jab home the points of his tale. Unlike the other Cairo cabbies I had met earlier in the week, Girgise doesn’t immediately associate ‘Malaysia’ with ‘fellow Muslim brother’ or ‘TV’ (it seems Malaysia is a renowned exporter of quality televisions to Cairo’s shops). Instead, after warily establishing my ‘kaffir’ status and wishing me ‘selamat pagi’, he goes on to berate me about the many Malaysians he’s encountered in this intoxicating, overripe metropolis of…
