Walk like an Egyptian: Why Blending in Matters

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Archive note: This diary records my first days in Egypt in January 2013. Politics, prices, transport and safety conditions change. If you're planning a trip now, check current official travel advice for Egypt rather than treating my experience as a safety guide.

I woke up groggy, still trying to snooze off a sleepless night of New Year's parties, looked out my window and could see that we had just flown over a small bay of some sort that showed the Mediterranean sea part of my journey was done. Our flight had just entered Egypt, and it was officially my first time in Africa.

A little later, Egypt Air‘s muffled speaker had an announcement in Arabic of our descent. It was confusing at first, considering I had just gone through several European languages in the last weeks, but it blurred back into spurts of comprehensible words, despite the poor quality audio, before the switch to English.

Since then, almost every single electric speaker I've heard has been muffled and half broken. At times I look to native speakers around me and they offer an equally confused shrug to what is being said.

After touchdown, I thought that at least I could get some quick Arabic practice with the immigration officers checking my visa, but the two of them processing the passport didn't look closely enough to compare me with my passport photo. After picking up my bags, I had another first and saw my own name printed on a piece of paper among the crowds at the arrival hall. Welcome to Egypt!

A note from the Fluent in 3 Months team before we get started: You can chat away with a native speaker for at least 15 minutes with the “Fluent in 3 Months” method. All it takes is 90 days. Tap this link to find out more.

Special price just for you!

Since I was arriving late, I decided to stay at a good hotel near the airport for one night. This included an airport transfer, and a personal chauffeur that went to the trouble of printing out my name to pick me up, which, as well as the breakfast and room, was a nice touch for $60 total for the night!

I noticed that my driver had a crucifix over his rear-view mirror: he was a Coptic Christian, part of one of the world's oldest Christian traditions. This initially made me wonder if I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque and ended up in the wrong country. I tried to make small talk in Arabic, but he just replied in English that my Arabic was good. I was too tired to have the language battle.

When we got to the hotel, after taking my passport, the first question they asked me at reception was not about my room, my trip, or anything of the sort. Would you like to see the pyramids tomorrow sir? We'll give you a special price on the tour!

I'd also get this question the next day checking in elsewhere, when I went into a tourist office to get a map, and a couple of other times. Special price, just for you! I don't like this nonsensical statement, so since they are lying to me, I decided to do the same and save them from wasting their time trying to pitch to me. I've already been there and they're beautiful. The camel ride was fun, but one visit was enough.

What's the rush?

I always leave these things until the very end. I lived in Paris for 9 entire months before ever going up the Eiffel Tower, the very last thing I did after travelling thousands of miles through China was walk the great wall, and I only visited Rome's Colosseum on my 4th stay there. The way I figure it, Giza's pyramids have waited over five thousand years for me, so they can certainly wait a few more weeks.

I'm actually here in Egypt to explore modern Egypt, and talk with Egyptians themselves. It's why I put so much effort into learning the language in advance. Ancient Egypt will only get minor attention on this trip. I can always come back if I need to.

When leaving the first hotel to check into my cheaper central accommodation for the week, the hotel arranged for a “special price” taxi for me. I met up with a blog reader for lunch, and he joined me in the taxi and was ashamed at the price hike they gave me. An entire 5 Egyptian pounds (€0.59 or US$0.78) more expensive than the metered one we took down the road. I didn't feel particularly outraged myself.

Walk like an Egyptian

Still a little tired, my second day, after settling in and unpacking I took a walk around the area. I'm in a very central part of town for my first days, and despite warnings, I'm quite close to Tahrir square.

My first issue of simply crossing the road from where I was staying reminded me of being in India again where safety comes second and most people merrily walk into fast uncoming traffic. I looked at the chaos of people disregarding fast approaching vehicles a little puzzled, and a random passer-by said to me in English “All you have to do is pray to your god, close your eyes and then walk!”

I found his joke memorable, though I certainly wasn't going to close my eyes in traffic. Whatever the local humour, I still needed to look both ways and cross carefully.

So if you think “walking like an Egyptian” involves horizontal palms like the Ancients, I'd say it is more accurately portrayed by placing one hand close to your ear (talking on your phone, ignoring the outside world), holding a cigarette in the other, and not hesitating for a moment as you step confidently off the curb to allow fast approaching vehicles to swerve around you.

I definitely wasn't walking, or looking, like an Egyptian though. That guy, and anyone else I met in cafés and the like would start speaking English to me immediately, before I even opened my mouth. I replied back in Arabic of course, but it was frustrating to not get into the flow as quick as I'd like. While most people would just give up and accept that they look too white or whatever, I took a very different strategy.

I don't think blaming my skin colour has much to do with it at all.

Why standing out changed my taxi experience

One warning I got before coming was that pretty much all taximen and everyone else would try to rip me off all the time. This was told to me almost entirely by people who had visited the country very briefly, going exclusively to the most touristed parts of it.

If I were to walk right out of the Sphinx to the nearest taxi, I expect to have a bit of an uphill battle in convincing him to give me a good price, as the next tourist may pay what he asks.

But apart from that first instance for the taxi waiting by a hotel, I've taken about a dozen taxis over the last days and all of them have charged me what it said on the taximeter without suggesting anything else, or without me needing to say anything more than hello and suggesting my destination.

Except for one. I was going to meet up with someone who told me to wear comfortable shoes for a long walk and to bring sunglasses in case it got windy. My most comfortable shoes are new ones I've just got which look like a unicorn puked on them (even brighter than the ones I have in my TEDx talk), and when I had my sunglasses on too, I really stood out. My shoes literally glow in the dark.

A taxi saw me in the distance and pulled over and he complained that his meter was broken and I had to argue with him to get the price back to the same I had paid for a similar distance the previous day. I know all about this “my meter is broke” trick, and he probably saw a very obvious looking foreigner in the distance and turned it off as he was pulling up to me. I told him in Arabic that I know what he did and threatened to get out right there and then he suddenly agreed to the fairer price I said.

My bright shoes and sunglasses probably made me easier to identify as a visitor from a distance. That may have drawn more attention, but the driver's behaviour was still his responsibility. I hadn't gone to any tourist sites yet, though the few foreign visitors I saw often stood out through their body language, clothing or visible cameras.

In fact, standing out so obviously, not because of the shoes, but the rest of how I look, is the same reason I was getting greeted so often in English. I decided to take several hours to sit down with a notepad and really look at Egyptians, especially Egyptian men.

Emulating is part of cultural integration

I find that paying attention to local clothing and body language can help me stand out less. What looks ordinary varies by place, and my bright travel clothes looked very different from what most men around me in central Cairo were wearing that week.

I sat on a stool in a café at a busy pedestrian intersection, endured the fact that most people there were smoking, and tried to see what makes an Egyptian Egyptian, especially in comparison to how I looked and for men around my age.

Most of them have really short hair, some have a moustache (not a goatee like me), and many look like they haven't shaved in days. Jeans with a sweater is the norm, or a light jacket over that, and shoes are more likely to be black or brown generic looking shoes, rather than sneakers (runners as we call them in Ireland), and certainly nothing as colourful as what I had. Sandals would also work.

Apart from some people in traditional or religious dress, few of the men I watched were wearing hats, so I decided that mine had to go.

A ridiculous number of them walk across busy intersections while sending a text message or talking to someone, keeping their eyes straight ahead rather than looking left and right. And of course they nearly always have a cigarette in one hand.

What this told me was that I could lose the hat, cut my hair shorter, change the goatee and wear a jumper over my T-shirt. I wasn't trying to copy every habit I saw; I just wanted my clothes and grooming to attract less attention.

Note that the point isn't to make people think that I'm Egyptian, but to stand out less. I did this while in Taiwan a year ago, and when in places like Peru, Italy, France, the Philippines etc. and always notice a major difference in how people treat me, and how easy it is to keep the conversation in the right language, if I try to emulate the locals as best as I can. At best they'll not really notice I'm foreign until they look at me properly or hear my accent, and at worst they think I'm an English teacher or an embassy worker who has lived in the country for a few years.

This felt different from being immediately treated as a passing tourist. Combined with working on my accent, it had even led a few people to mistake me for a local in places where my appearance did not immediately mark me as foreign. That was a personal experience, not a realistic or necessary goal for every learner.

Speaking Arabic and plans while in Egypt

So yes, for my first days, rather than go look at the pyramids or museums, I've been “checking out” the locals so that I can try to emulate them better. For me this is all an investment to help me integrate in better while here, and something I couldn't really do from abroad as easily.

I've also taken a few hours to catch up on my Arabic studies to get me back to where I was before the last weeks where I had no practice or study whatsoever.

That long break, combined with being tired my first two days, has thrown a bit of a spanner in the works to make me sluggish to use Arabic all the time. But last night I went out and met a bunch of people and managed to keep my end of conversations just in Arabic, genuinely socializing in the language for the first time, without slowing down the conversation.

I've also been speaking it with taxi drivers. The last taxi I took today gave me an earful of rants about Morsi. He pointed at several shops that had closed that must be his fault, and seemed oblivious to the fact that today is a public holiday for a lot of people (it's Coptic Christmas today you know!) I have no interest in getting into political discussions, so I tried to change the subject and somehow it got back to Morsi again.

Despite the bumpy start, now I am indeed doing pretty much everything I need to do in Arabic, even making friends. There have been some I've met who look like they really prefer to practise English, so I haven't really made much of a fuss about it since I'm taking it easy my first days, and was expecting more English while in Cairo anyway.

At the end of this week I'll move to the Giza side of the Nile for a few more days, to escape the noise of where I am staying now (constant car horns, some so overused they sound like wheezy ducks), probably studying a bit more to catch up on lost time from weeks of overseeing the Skype Me Maybe video, checking out more of modern Cairo and getting ready for my big trip around the country.

Of course, I hope to find interesting things to capture on camera and look forward to sharing chats with Egyptians. I plan to cover as much of the country as I can, and travel as independently as possible.

Frequently asked questions for my first days in Egypt

I invited those following my Facebook page and Instagram accounts to ask questions about my days in Egypt, and hope these answers cover some things you may be wondering about!

• What do the Egyptians think of their new visitor trying to learn their native language?

The reaction, as expected, is utter confusion. Not that I'm learning Arabic, or even Egyptian Arabic, but the fact that I've only been in the country a few days, and have never been here before, and am talking to them fine. I especially like seeing people's double-take when I say that I learned all my Egyptian Arabic in the middle of Brazil 🙂

A couple of people told me that I should focus on Modern Standard Arabic rather than Egyptian Arabic. Others told me they would not normally hold an everyday conversation entirely in MSA.

• Do you hear a lot of Modern Standard Arabic?

Most taxidrivers have tuned into a radio station that is playing what sounds like sung recitations from the Koran, and this would be in Classical Arabic. Newspapers and books also tend to be in MSA, as well as formal news broadcasts. Most people will understand it OK, although they admit that there are parts of the Koran they genuinely don't understand, which surprised me.

In my first days, I rarely heard sustained MSA in ordinary street conversations.

That does not make MSA useless across borders. It is the shared formal variety used in education, writing and news, while everyday conversations involve regional varieties and plenty of adaptation. The people I spoke with said Egyptian Arabic was widely recognised partly because of Egypt's film and television reach.

• I'd like to know how you are received in general, as a Westerner

I feel very welcome here. People are very pleased that I'm learning their language, and apart from one taxi driver who saw me stand out too much, nobody has tried to take advantage of me. Any issues in the country right now are political. Being angry towards foreigners is very unlikely, as a lot of people directly or indirectly may earn through tourism and have no interest in scaring them away.

Egyptians are also incredibly welcoming in general. I have found it really hard to pay my fair share when sharing a taxi or eating with someone. I always have a long discussion that I really do prefer to pay and invite them, since I earn in foreign currency so it's not expensive at all to me. But they absolutely insist each time to be the ones paying for me, as I'm the guest.

It's a lovely sentiment, and shows how friendly they are, although I hope I improve my arguing skills in such discussions to pay my fair share as I hate to take advantage when I really don't need to.

• Are you able to communicate with people in the street? Do you understand Egyptian accents?

The final thing I'll say on the Arabic issue for now is that I found it hard to get good Egyptian Arabic learning material in 2012.

Egyptian Arabic is a recognised regional variety, commonly described as a dialect or group of dialects. It is not identical across Egypt, and speech varies by region, community and context.

For instance, common words can differ between MSA and Egyptian Arabic. “Yes” can be naʿam in MSA and aywa in Egyptian Arabic. One word does not measure the full distance between varieties, but differences in everyday vocabulary were immediately noticeable to me.

Egyptian Arabic has conventions and enormous cultural reach, but MSA remains the main formal written and educational standard. That difference made beginner materials less straightforward for me to navigate.

This caused a few surprises, such as hearing familiar words pronounced differently from my teachers and learning materials. I could understand some speakers easily and others hardly at all. Age, region, individual speech and the difference between teaching audio and spontaneous conversation may all have played a part.

Apart from going out last night, most of my conversations so far have been with taxi drivers. Some of the chats are pretty hilarious!

The dialect vs standard issue is one I'll come back to later in a dedicated post, as it's a lot more complicated than we think when we see just books about “Arabic” on a language learning shelf.

• The weather. Is it hotter than Brazil?

While we imagine Egypt always basking in desert sunshine, it had actually been cool enough since I arrived: between 10 and 18°C, with some drizzle the previous night. I could wear a T-shirt in that temperature, but most people were wearing jumpers or a jacket. It had also been cloudy most of the time.

• Does the ordinary person in the street visit the pyramids, sphinx etc.

I find this to be universal in most places – you only really tend to visit such things on school outings or if a foreign friend is in town.

In Ireland, I've never gone to the Cliffs of Moher or the Blarney castle, even though the majority of American tourists I've met who managed to get outside of Dublin have. The only reason I would go would be if I was nearby or with a foreign friend who wanted to go. A couple of locals I met last night told me that they go to the pyramids regularly, but it's because they were working as a tour guide, or showing foreign visitors around.

You will see the pyramids from many parts of Cairo, and they may pass your view every day, so it kind of takes away from the need to go right up to them. Although, I haven't seen them yet, since I haven't really tried to, or I've been in places with lots of buildings that would block the view.

• What stereotypes do Egyptians you've met have associated with the Irish

They know the name of the country, and that there is a “north” and a “south”, but that's about it! Most of the time I have to confirm for them that we speak English in Ireland.

• Do you feel safe?

As discussed in a recent post, I think it's a terrible thing when the media round up as much fear as they can. The vision that most people have of what Egypt is like is so incredibly skewed and far from the truth.

I decided to (cautiously) walk towards Tahrir square, since I was so close, and what I found was that it was busy with normal people going about their day, that businesses there are open and operating as normal, and that you wouldn't really know anything happens here apart from the fact that they have closed it off from traffic and that there are tents set up in the centre.

In general though, I'll simply not go there as it's the one place that is likely to have demonstrations, especially on Fridays.

Everywhere else, the same rules as always apply. It wouldn't be wise for me to walk around with my laptop or show off my smartphone, and I make sure to walk in places with lots of people. As I wrote above, I'm trying to find ways to stand out less. Being streetsmart has kept me well for a decade of travelling to many different countries and I intend to keep aware of what's happening here as I have anywhere else.

During those first days, I personally felt safer walking the streets of Cairo than I had in some American cities. That was one traveller's experience in January 2013, not a current risk assessment.

• Are you coming to other nearby countries, or exploring Africa?

This trip is all about Egypt for me. It's why I was only interested in learning Egyptian Arabic first. I travel slowly and plan to visit many countries in future. It took me 10 years of travelling the world to finally get to Africa, so I'm obviously not in a crazy hurry, and prefer to take my time. There's plenty of decades left to do and see many things 🙂

• Is there lots of talk of the revolution?

Not so much of the revolution, but general discontent with the political and economic situation. I also find that many I've talked to seem to be unfortunately quite cynical about other groups of people, which is such a pity.

Demonstrations will likely continue and I definitely don't plan to be anywhere near Cairo or Alexandria on the anniversary of the revolution, as it's expected that there'll be more big demonstrations then.

• What local foods have you tried?

Today I met up with a local who walked me around and gave me some suggestions for local vegetarian food. I had some great falafel, ful beans and aubergine in a wrap. She highly recommended that I try koshari next. It looked really heavy, so I planned to make sure I was hungry first. It was looking like it wouldn't be so hard to eat well as a vegetarian there.

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