Our landlord isn't the most helpful guy on the planet, and has yet to deliver on many of his promises, one of them being bathroom repairs. Today our shower set-up broke. P and I went out in search of a new pipe and shower head, and took the old one with us, since I had no idea what the arabic word was. We went round the corner to the convenience store we frequent - there are three in a row, and they all sell pretty much the same thing, but we always buy our water from the same guy, and he's always happy to see us. After a little game of pointing and a few words of broken arabic, he gave us directions to a shop called "subbak." We walked a couple of minute and nearly missed what was pretty much a locked cabinet on the side of the street, full of pipes, hoses and shower heads. No one was in sight so we kept walking. We asked at a couple more shops but found nothing, but then came upon a gift store with a photocopy service outside (exactly what it sounds like - a copy machine on the sidewalk!) who pointed us to the next "subbak." We walked through a few more alleyways until some lady called out at us, grabbed me by the hand, and unlocked a door in the wall to reveal a whole panel of shower heads. She proceeded to wax eloquent about the Turkish and Chinese-made ones, and $5 later we were all set. I later found out that "subbak" means plumber...
So goes life in Cairo, slowly but surely, with our vocabulary increasing daily. People in our hood still aren't quite used to us. P is as white as they get, and it doesn't help that we're a mixed couple. It always goes like this in a shop we haven't been to before (in Arabic)
Guy: (Looking at P curiously) Where are you from?
Me: He's from Polanda. Bolanda.
Guy: (Huge grin) Ahh!! Holanda, holanda! Football! Good team!
Me: No... no.. Bolanda.
Guy: (Mildly disappointed) Oh... BOLANDAAA. (To me) Are you Egyptian?
Me: No. I'm from India.
Guy: Yes yes! Amitabh Bachchan! Very nice country!
I was wearing a long tunic I picked up in India (sooo useful in Egybt). I guess it had kind of an ethnic print on it... but it elicited a couple of ni-haos from some young girls on the street. There's a first for everything!
We also found a Kushary joint quite close to us: a full meal for 2LE (35 cents!). Giant win!
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