For the last hour or so I’ve been hearing some loud pop/rock blaring away. I assumed that a swimming gala or the such was happening at the sporting club along the road, so didn’t pay much attention. A few moments ago it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard any Arabic music, so headed outside to investigate. Balcony doors pulled back, the lyrics “He shall save you, He shall save you, Jesus loves you” boomed out from the garden across the road.

So, the neighbours who water their garden profusely 365 days a year, for the sole purpose of circumnavigating it about 10 times in the same period, appear to have found a use for it: teenage evangelical bible study groups.

I’m sure the music helps set the mood for those preparing the chairs and horsing around, but I’m a little puzzled as to why it’s ok for a teenagers’ bible study class to disturb an entire neighbourhood.

As it happened a couple of times before the annual expat summer exodus, I’m wondering if this means that our neighbours are going to be hosting the event regularly….

On the vertical front, our downstairs neighbour has been relatively quiet since my return a few days ago. Nothing short of a miracle this, as she is utterly unable to speak to any of the ’staff’ i.e. doorman, cleaner, delivery boys/men. The minute she opens her mouth a tirade of insults gets hurled at the unfortunate minion opposite her, at decibel levels high enough that Mr S’s HSE department would render our apartment unlivable, due to a live environmental hazard. The situation, and undoubtedly, the unfortunate minion’s humiliation, is worsened by her inability to carry out this communication in any location other than the stairwell, which acts as a wide boy’s boom box on her gnarly bellows.

I spent a good few months trying to imagine what she looked like with a friend of mine, based on this voice. We came to the conclusion that she was an old, tremendously fat woman, with grey hair, who probably dressed in black galabeyas (long shapeless tunics) and had bad health problems that gave her trouble walking. All this would help explain why she was more than a little short tempered.

I never saw her.

Not, that is, until I realised that she was the short, slender, impeccably made up, immaculately dressed, sweet-as-roses, butter-wouldn’t-melt, friendly, BMW-driving woman I pass in the stairwell.

I just entered into one of those awkward moments that are politely circumvented with guests. We have some lovely people staying with us right now. Truly the best guests ever to have set foot across our threshold, which at the moment isn’t a lot, admittedly, but after a week, I don’t have that niggling little voice looping inside my head asking, “When are they leaving? When are they leaving? When are they leaving?” so many times I’m not sure if I’ve actually asked them or not, and hope that I’ve been hospitable enough that it’s the latter. As a fellow expat once said, “The best parts of the stay are the journey home from airport just after picking them up and the journey back to the airport at the end.” But not with these guests.

I handled it well to start off with. “Don’t worry,” I said smiling, “It’s fine.” Then after adamant protestations of total bewilderment as to how it could have happened, I said I’d take a look. It’s a dangerous game lending or being a lendee of someone’s computer. Even if it’s only for a few minutes. Especially when it involves anything other than checking email or general “safe” surfing, i.e. no chance of dodgey sites being opened.

So, I took a look.

“Somehow” (”it wasn’t me” we all thought), a .jpg image had consumed some other jpgs making itself a folder without showing up as a folder and was also made into a shortcut that had disappeared. There’s probably a simple explanation, certainly no malintent, but it wasn’t known to any of us. So, we did the It Wasn’t Me dance to the tune of The Last Time I Looked at the Image it was Fine, before we remembered that we had a backup on another computer. Pheweeee. Definitely the best way to avoid an awkward standoff!

It reminded me of my last job. Tasked to look after the computers (nothing serious there, I’m not so gifted at fixing things, but can call someone else to do it), I would make some periodical checks on the computers to make sure things were running as they should be. This would take all of fifteen minutes at the most usually because in our multinational office we had three staff: my manager, me and the manager’s assistant/glorified driver. So, checking one computer (not my manager’s or mine) I found a shortcut to suckmyt*ts.com (something like that anyway) on the desktop. I opened the link and it was what it said it was. The interenet history had sites like teenagepu**y.com and f**kme.com (or sites to that effect).

Nice.

When confronted, employee denied any knowledge of how it occurred. After explaining that it shouldn’t. Ever. Under any circumstances. We later found more. Employee’s explanation: “It’s strange, I’m not doing anything like that now,” (hmm. so you lied before??), “It just sometimes opens. I go to Yahoo! and then sometimes these pages just open by themselves and I don’t know what to do.”

“Hmm,” said I. “That’s possible, although unlikely if you’ve never been to those sites since the computer was cleaned. I guess it’s coincidental then that these pages are all accessed at times when nobody else is in the office?”

“Hmmmm,” cue knitting of eyebrows, then a protracted pause, which I was prepared to wait out, “I don’t know how that could have happened.”

“Well, obviously someone accessed the sites on your computer at those times. That’s all,” was my short reply. I’d have liked to add a few f’ing pervs in there, or at least, “I don’t care if you jerk off, just don’t do it in the office” but I was maintaining the moral high ground as well as following company rules (no bullying…).

It did make me feel a bit awkward sometimes. I was consciously conservative in what I wore to work after that. I sometimes wondered what he was thinking when he looked at me and in fairness, I never felt him looking at me any differently, and never sleazily, but I certainly viewed him differently after that.

But even that was less awkward than when he told me, while driving me somewhere during work, that his wife didn’t want sex very much because she was circumcised and he didn’t know what he should do.

Luckily we arrived at my destination in time for me to hot foot it away from having to answer.

“Hello, is that Saleema?”
“Yes.”
“Hello Saleema, I’m calling you back about the job.”
“Ah, hello Madame.”
“Are you still available?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, I’d like you to come and work with us.”
“That’s great!” says Saleema, “When can I start?”
“Could you start tomorrow?”
“Yes, what time shall I come Madame?”
“Is 9am ok?”
“That’s great! I’ll see you then Madame.”
“Thank you Saleema.”

So, 8.30am I was up (hungover – limoncello induced) and preparing things to make the beginning smooth.

At 9am I heard the elevator.

It wasn’t her.

At 9.15am I called her mobile. She didn’t answer. I called her landline. She still didn’t answer.

Our balcony, after two weeks of nearly being cleaned, but then not, now looks like this - but multiplied by about two hundred tiles (the tiles should be a very pale beige):

Then there are the trellises, the walls and the railings. All in all it takes a few hours to clean the thing properly. I can’t add a picture of what it feels like walking across it these days, but it has a crunchy feeling, just like walking in fresh snow. This is why people have cleaners in Cairo, not because they’re lazy, but because if you don’t do it every second day at least, it turns disgusting and who wants to spend their time spring cleaning every two days? I can’t remember EVER sweeping even our front step in the UK.

I’m beginning to think that full spring cleaning every two days would be better than starting to find a cleaner all over again.

Not quite however, in fact, I’m reaching for the phone now…

Yesterday I had successfully lined up three potential new cleaners for interview. All had agreed on the working hours and pay, so it was just a matter of us meeting and them having a look at the apartment.

Candidate number two was from the Philippines. She was lovely and had a fantastic reference from someone who is still employing her part time, so I could even check it out (unlike the others). She told me that her daughter was coming over in September.
“Oh that’s nice. How old is your daughter?”
“She’s fourteen.”
“So is she coming to visit or to stay with you?” I asked thinking that fourteen was a difficult age to be changing schools, and wondering which school she would go to here as I don’t imagine that any school here, other than the outrageously expensive, is better than those in the Philippines.
“She’s coming here,” candidate number two said giggling, “I’ll give her to you!”
“Ha ha!” I laughed back.
I showed her the rest of the apartment and then we sat down to chat.
“So,” I said, reiterating what I’d said on the phone, “The hours and pay are acceptable to you?”
“Yes, Madame,” candidate number two replied, “I work for the other lady on Saturdays and have another part time job during the week.”
“Oh, that’s a lot of work. Are you sure you will be able to manage it all?”
“Oh yes, it’s not a problem, Madame, my daughter will come in September.”
“Hmm? Your daughter will come here with you?”
“Yes, she needs a job, so she can work here.”
“I’m to be involved in child labour?” I thought. Luckily she continued, “She’s not got experience yet, so she needs to get some cleaning. I think this would be good.”
“I’m sorry,” I said apologetically, thankful that I hadn’t interrupted earlier, “but I’ve had problems with inexperienced people before, so right now I’m specifically looking for someone with a lot of experience. I don’t think that your daughter will be good for me.”
“Ah. Ok Madame. That’s a shame.”
“Yes, but I think it’s good that we both know where we stand from the beginning. It’s better that we are clear about what we want so we both don’t run into problems later.”
“Very true Madame. Ok. Thank you for seeing me.”
She amicably left.

I have no working experience with the Philippines, but Filipino maids are famous. All the Filipino women I interviewed for cleaning had a lot of family back in the Philippines that they were supporting, most of whom they were supporting through university. The reason that this fourteen year old was coming to Egypt was because she was going to be supporting her siblings too. A future sacrificed for siblings: such a common tale in developing countries. Somewhat shocking for us in the West, who get free education or repayment mechanisms that at least allow us the option of going to university, the thought of sacrificing our education so a younger brother or sister can have one instead.

Then I started feeling doubly bad. By not employing this girl, I was possibly denying someone the opportunity of going to university.

But child labour is child labour and by employing her, perhaps her neighbour’s daughter, or one or her friends would be sent away somewhere to clean so her sibling(s) could have an education too.

It’s not fair, but I can’t make it worse.

All these issues are fairly obvious once you start thinking. What is really worrying, however, is something I didn’t properly realise until a few weeks ago. I had asked her to clean the fridge. She took out the shelves in the door, cleaned them and put them back. In the top shelf, there are trays for eggs that sit neatly inside the shelf. When she put the shelf back, the egg trays had to go in diagonally because they would not fit. I am pretty convinced that she was not being lazy, she just doesn’t have the reasoning to think that perhaps another shelf that looks the same might actually be a slightly different size and might fit. If I showed her, she would remember, she is not stupid, the problem is that she has never been taught how to think.

The simple exercises we did in our first years at junior school, or even before, with building blocks as a toddler, have an impact that is so basic for us, we don’t even notice.

I have been asked to decide if her daughter’s various suitors so far are good men for her daughter to marry. One of them was a man who sells fruit from a donkey cart, smokes a lot of weed and could give her a lot of gold and a fair sized apartment as a dowry. This man does the same job as her son, who does not smoke, comes from the same background and could never afford any of that. It hadn’t crossed her mind that perhaps he does more than just smoke the drugs.

If this inability to think things out through lack of education is applied to a very conservative 25% of the population, it has rather worrying implications. If it is further applied to discussions about the main topics here, politics and religion, well, need I say more?

Although the fridge and the suitor incidents may seem like stupidity, they aren’t. This woman is not an idiot, by any stretch of the imagination. It’s purely lack of education in its widest sense.

What provoked this thought was that I asked her on Wednesday if she would like to learn to iron. Her face beamed.

“Oh! Yes, I would! Step by step. You know? I’m old, I will be 45 next month, but my brain is still young and I want to learn new things.”

I wanted to cry.

Last time I was in the UK was just before Red Nose Day. Pictures of dirty, hungry children from dusty poverty-stricken areas of the world were abundant on TV. It seemed a bit strange to me, rather like it would to people in the UK to have montages of chavs looking up to the camera from a street corner.

It is so normal to see hungry, extremely disadvantaged people here that it seems strange to have to have TV shows about them in the UK to remind us of their existence.

Illiteracy is a big problem in the third and developing worlds. As a developing country, Egypt has its fair share of illiteracy problems. It is incredibly difficult for any reader of this blog to imagine what illiteracy means. Firstly and most obviously because you are reading the blog and secondly because you are able to have access to a computer, probably one you bought with money from a job in which you have to read and write.

That is just the beginning of it however. I have a cleaner (an issue for later, but basically not having one when you can afford to is seen as not giving a job, and therefore money, to someone who desperately needs it), Um Osama, who is a hardworking and lovely lady. She has worked with me for nearly four years now. She told me from the very beginning that she is illiterate.

So, turning on the washing machine was a problem for Um Osama for a little while, remembering which squiggle she was supposed to turn the dial to. Phone numbers she has to memorise although she has little book in which she gets people to write their number down and someone else can read it out to her if she forgets. Her daughter’s birth certificate had the wrong name on it, and Um Osama didn’t know until she went to enroll her daughter at school and was told that said daughter did not exist and therefore could not go to school (she eventually went for a few years later).

“He was a bad man. What he did was wrong. He did a lot of bad things - he was a very bad man.

“But the time was wrong. Like a sheep? No, that was wrong. For everyone to remember every year on that day? No. That was very wrong. He was a bad man, but I cried for him because it was wrong to do it on that day.

“He is going to Hell now because he was a bad man.”

Words of the woman who has helped me in the house for three years.

She never steals. Ever. It is wrong. Jewellery, money and expensive household items are within her reach and she never takes anything. Is this what she was taught at home? No. At school? No, she didn’t go to school. From a religious book? No.

It was Ramadan. She was about 12 and helping to prepare the food for iftar. A plate was going to the table and she couldn’t resist a taste. For that taste, the 12 year old was hit with a kitchen utensil and has a scar on her hand to this day. Was she punished for breaking her fast? No. The hungry 12 year old was punished for stealing a mouthful of food from someone else’s plate.

Indicative of her life: nothing explained, no questions allowed, harsh punishment for a misdemeanour, no independent thought encouraged.

..not only her.

She never steals. Ever. It is wrong. Jewellery, money and expensive household items are within her reach and she never takes anything. Is this what she was taught at home? No. At school? No, she didn’t go to school. From a religious book? No.

It was Ramadan. She was about 12 and helping to prepare the food for iftar. A plate was going to the table and she couldn’t resist a taste. For that taste, the 12 year old was hit with a kitchen utensil and has a scar on her hand to this day. Was she punished for breaking her fast? No. The hungry 12 year old was punished for stealing a mouthful of food from someone else’s plate.

Indicative of her life: nothing explained, no questions allowed, harsh punishment for a misdemeanour, no independent thought encouraged.

..not only her.

Slouching, beaten by the world, she sits for hours. The old white shirt sagging over her concave shoulders and slightly grubby red uniform waistcoat flopping over her rounded belly. Barely looking up she moves mechanically from right to left, right to left. People stop, people pass, people talk. Sometimes to her. Sometimes she responds. Her response a grunt, not enough life left to waste on an answer.

But then I saw her smile.

Sneaking a look through a fashion magazine between customers she saw something: maybe a dress, maybe a celebrity. She twisted to show a colleague. Foot on the pedal, the groceries edged towards her. All traces of smile erased, she twisted back, grunted a response and her beaten torso turned right: my groceries were about to be scanned.