Surrounded by dangerous Egyptian men.

Run awaaaaay!

Speaking of dangerous Egyptian men. Jessica, a girl from Minnesota who I met at the language school, is dating an Egyptian man, Shahir. Very nice guy, fun to hang out with, a fine upstanding gentleman except when he's telling inappropriate jokes, which are funny/bad enough to be acceptable, anyway.

Fast forward to the night of Jessica's birthday party at a club on a boat moored on the Nile. Before heading to the boat, I got dinner with Noura and Smita. On the way there, a guy followed us in his car and kept trying to give Noura a flower. We spent most of the time talking about creepazoid guys we'd encountered since arriving. After dinner, Noura and I were searching for ice cream when she said, "Hey, some guy is pointing at me and yelling." I told her to just ignore him - they usually get the point. But then she said, "He's still following us and pointing and yelling."

Finally I turned around to look - and it was Shahir, trying to get my attention. He ended up giving both of us a ride to ice cream and then the boat. Whattaguy.

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Another night, Noura and I went down the street to get some shawerma from a corner take-away restaurant. We just sat on the curb outside to eat the sandwiches, and a group of teenage guys was sitting near us. They never once looked at us, but we could hear that they were starting to say a few things in English. They would speak Arabic among themselves for a while and then suddenly say, "I am Egyptian boy. I am crazy boy!" or "Please give me drugs!" But they really didn't look at us at all.

In fact, a lot of the comments are said under the breath with the eyes averted. It's almost as though they don't want you to hear them - but then again, if that were really the case, they just wouldn't say anything.

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My last full day in Cairo, I'm pretty sure my taxi driver suggested we make a baby together. Using simple Arabic and hand gestures so I would understand, he said, "You - baby - beautiful. ... Oh, I forget, I'm married, I'm sorry."

He still made me pay for the cab, though. Maybe I should have had his baby.

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A little later I was walking down the street, looking for some food, when a guy started talking to me. He pulled out his Dutch student ID card to prove that he actually goes to school there. By that point I had learned to tell men who asked that yes, I have a boyfriend, we've been together for one and a half years. His response: "That's too long! Time for a change - time to try an Egyptian man!" And then, "No, just kidding, I'm married. Well, actually, it'd be okay. I'm allowed to - but my wife isn't!"

Wow...you really know how to pick up a woman, dude.

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Even at the airport on my way out, the guy who helped me with my luggage told me I was beautiful. This country is very good for the ego.

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Despite what you may have heard about Egyptian men - including from me! - they really are mostly harmless. The ones who make comments pretty much never try to take it any further - I only had one weird incident, where a guy started holding out his hand as though I would actually want to hold it and then touching my arm when I didn't - and there are, of course, many upstanding young men who don't make comments at all. Shahir was horrified that someone might have thought he was creeping. As in any country, there are bad eggs and good eggs, and I was lucky enough to meet a lot of good eggs there. Thank you, respectful men of Egypt!