Bill and Melissa in Cairo بل و ميليسا في القاهرة

I answer the doorbell to find our bawwab (doorman) Hassan, a smiling man with gray streaks in his black hair. He nods hello and speaks a few, unintelligible words in Arabic. I nod and show my friendliest smile. This is usually the best response. It is polite, natural, and works nicely for a whole host of situations. Unfortunately, he didn’t stop by to wish me good morning or mention how entertaining the football (soccer) game was last night.

He waits, and I realize that he has asked me a question. Shoot. I stammer, “Uhh…” and stare intently at the paper in his hand, as though intelligently comprehending what it read. I kept staring, even after I had realized there was not a single word in English there.

He repeats the question with a smile and holds out the paper to me, pointing. This time I understood some number words. “Oh! Um, is this a bill? Should I…” I trail off. He has not learned any English words since I last tried this immersion method on him, which was yesterday. I resist the urge to talk slower and louder. That is often what well-meaning Arabs will do to me. Besides making me feel like a special ed. student with hearing problems, gibberish is still gibberish, no matter how carefully it is pronounced!

There’s a short, awkward pause, and then he throws back his head and chuckles gleefully, as though I had just delivered the punch line to a hilarious joke. It must have been the expression of terror on my face. I join in nervously, trying not to appear as helpless as I felt. Should I go get my phrase book, and look up the words for “I have no idea what you’re talking about and I feel like an idiot”? I’m in his country, after all.

Out on the street, a driver honks, and inexplicably I turn toward the sound. I feel the desert, oven-like air flowing past me into our apartment, and absent-mindedly wonder if it will be only mildly scorching hot today, or unbearably so, our two weather options for this time of year.

Hassan is still patiently waiting. I have the vague idea that I should hand him money, an all too common feeling in the land where tips are expected for the slightest of services. But I know we pay the bawwab only at the end of the month.

Is that a twinkle in his eye? Is this amusing to him? Suddenly… “Ahhh!” he says with his index finger pointing up, the international gesture for “I have a wonderful idea!” As he pulls his 21st century cell phone from a pocket in his long, dusty robe that looks remarkably close to how I’ve pictured Jesus dressed, it happily occurs to me that we haven’t paid our electricity yet for last month, and this has to be what he needs. He deftly punches out numbers on the keypad and turns it to show me: “93.”

“Gineeh?” I ask, suddenly proud that I was able to recall the word for an Egyptian pound, equivalent to $0.18.

He nods with a pleased expression. That one word that I am able to conjure up brings us into the realm of a real, human-to-human interaction. The satisfaction I feel in this small accomplishment is immense. I count out the money with accuracy and appropriately end with Shukran (thank you) and Ma salama (goodbye), beginning to feel downright impressed with myself. A coping mechanism I’ve developed, probably, which helps me focus on my tiny successes and blocks out the many painful moments when I’ve utterly embarrassed myself. Like the day I told the taxi driver to take me to Road Solid, instead of Road 200. But that’s another story…