Riding The Subway

The main station of the Cairo subway system runs below Midan Tehrir, the huge square adjacent to where I live. Living in such proximity means many destinations in town are a quick train ride away. Maadi? 20 minutes. Dokki? Two stops under the Nile. It’s convenient, cheap (17 cents), fast (especially during traffic) and used by hundreds of thousands of Cierenes every day. During the busiest times the cars are literally packed with people and personal space becomes a luxury to be cherished upon disembarkment. Thankfully for women riders traveling alone, the first two cars of every train are reserved exclusively for them and even during the busiest times there is at least space to stand. A few weeks ago, Nicole and I took the train to the Khan. We boarded a full train at Sadat. The next platform was FULL of people and of course they all wedged themselves in. It’s actually rather comical. Before the doors open the people are clamoring to board. Problem is, while the masses are getting ON the train, another group of people are trying hard to get OFF. Naturally, a polite but firm shoving match ensues and everyone who is trying to get off manages to do so, and those who want to get on somehow do. So the doors opened at the second platform and as the mass of people pushed themselves as a group on it separated Nicole and I and pushed us deeper into the train. Unfortunately ours was the next stop. As the train came to it, the doors opened and MORE people tried to push into the train, but it was useless—there wasn’t another inch to be found. I couldn’t see Nicole as I swam towards the door, but as I was spit to the platform I saw her arm sticking out. I grabbed on and pulled, and, PLOP. She popped out of the train just as the doors closed behind her. Ahh, air!

Today I was on my way to Maadi for church and in my confidence boarded the train headed in the OPPOSITE direction. Once on board I delved into my book and didn’t realize my mistake until 20 minutes later when the station names were all wrong. I was already so late that that blunder meant missing the service. I got off muttering admonishments to myself and trying to figure out how the entire system turned itself backward since the last time I rode to Maadi. At least I had my History of the Modern Middle East book on me, so the retrace wouldn’t be a total waste. The trains come every two or three minutes so I was soon headed back downtown. A normal part of riding the subway is turning down all kinds of trinkets and do-dads that poor but enterprising people try to sell to their captive customers. Last week it was cheaply made sowing kits and light bulbs. The seller would walk through the car and simply hand one to EVERY person there. Once distributed he/she would come back to collect either the item or payment. Today it was an old woman and she was handing out pieces of torn out notebook paper with Arabic script scrawled across each one. I tried to ignore her with my nose in my book, but somehow she got me to take one, once I saw what it was I tried to give it back but she wouldn’t accept. I didn’t want to be stuck holding it while I waited for her to come back so I put it on the floor by my feet until she returned. Immediately, the man next to me picked it up, held on to it, and said something I didn’t understand. As soon as he took it, I realized my mistake. The pages didn’t contain recipes for ful or bad poetry, but verses from the Koran. I had just offended everybody there by putting the sacred words on the floor practically under my feet! Woops! The woman came back. People gave her donations along with the papers, and the man returned to her my slip that I obviously held in such distain. Heathen!