In my last English class, I was reviewing with my students the difference between the terms to steal, to be robbed, and to be ripped off. Little did I know that this lesson would hit so close to home. I descended into the metro at Opera, unthinkingly putting my wallet in a rather accessible pocket of my backpack after I bought my ticket. I held my backpack on my side with my hand over the zippers, as usual. When I changed trains at Sadat (Tahrir), however, I was caught as usual in a giant commotion while boarding the women's car. Shoved this way and that, I couldn't have my hands everywhere at once. A few stops later, I went to get off. Your pocket is open, a schoolgirl said innocently. Oh, no, I thought. I knew exactly what had happened, and I was furious. Instead of getting off at my stop, I shouted loudly, Had sara'ny! -- Somebody robbed me. The ladies in the car looked at me skeptically, whispering amongst themselves. Mostly I think they were surprised that this white girl was yelling in Arabic, since no one made any gesture to help. I went back to where I was standing, angrily demanding that the women seated nearby tell me what they'd seen. It was open the whole time, they said, shrugging. This happens all the time here, to both men and women, by men and women, to Egyptians as well as to foreigners. And of course it has also happened to me in the United States. But I felt at that moment, with everybody staring at me and no one caring, extremely aware of my foreignness. 'Alshan ana khawaga, sahh?! I sputtered -- It's because I'm a khawaga, right?! I pushed through the crowd and got off at the next stop. I bounded down the platform, visibly upset. A creepy man approached me and tried to hit on me. Ohhh you need money, do you? he asked, coming too close. I heard myself shout, I hate this place! to my roommate on the phone. I was doing a great job as an ambassador between cultures.
But then I made my way to ADEW, the NGO where I'm working. My coworkers there were incredibly sweet, asking one of the assistants to bring me some juice and helping me contact the bank. CASA sent over Moheb, a quiet young man who works in the office, to accompany me to the police. At Tahrir, the site of the crime, the police station was in a small, unmarked room. Perhaps it's not surprising that they don't want to draw attention to themselves these days. The door opened onto a burly man with a hefty mustache and a jolly grin. The room itself was painted a dull cream, with a few posters of Qur'anic verses hung on the walls, a couple file cabinets, and not much else. Unlike my first Middle Eastern theft experience, in Morocco, these policemen did not write out reports on colonial-era typewriters but rather scrawled mountains of testimony out by hand. They were gleeful to discover I spoke Arabic. In addition to the plainclothes officers, there was a girl my own age, her eyes ringed with dark kohl, who had also been pickpocketed, her little brother, and a pair of child thieves. They were less than 10 years old, probably, scraped and dirty and crouched on the floor in the corner of the room. Hey, was it these guys who robbed you? one of the officers laughed, trying to tease the kids as well as me. They weren't amused. I wondered what the older girl in the cheap red hijab was thinking; it was probably not her first time there and no one was paying her much attention, but she considered me with carefully narrowed eyes. I was marched to two other offices within the Sadat metro station for no apparent reason, and then brought back to page through the photo albums of known metro thieves. There was a book of women's photos and a book of men's. I tried to explain that I hadn't seen the thief and anyway, all the women standing around me were munaqabat (wearing the niqab) or nearly so. Meaning I couldn't distinguish one from the other as hard as I might try. The officer laughed. It's ok, we have photos of munaqabat, too! he said. The women's album was a hefty volume of rather similar photos, with captions indicating where they had been caught and brief physical descriptions. Many held signs in the photos that read "Sar'a" - theft. After this obviously unsuccessful effort, we waited while the officer in charge made a variety of calls and wrote pages and pages of reports on something (not my own matter). An Egyptian woman came in and announced that 1500 LE ($250) had been stolen out of her purse. They told her they were backed up and she should come back in three or four hours. A few minutes later, two husky middle-aged men burst into the office, shouting and gesticulating. One, I learned, was a plainclothes cop, the other a pickpocket he'd caught and dragged in. Still, it was not immediately easy to tell who was who - everyone seemed to be rather good-natured about the whole thing once the initial drama cooled down. Then the officers announced it was time for tea. The cabinet was opened and glass cups and Lipton's tea bags were produced for all. Somehow that seemed to be the way to conclude the visit: when the tea was done, we were sent merrily on our way with the promise that we'd be called if any of my cards were found.
But then I made my way to ADEW, the NGO where I'm working. My coworkers there were incredibly sweet, asking one of the assistants to bring me some juice and helping me contact the bank. CASA sent over Moheb, a quiet young man who works in the office, to accompany me to the police. At Tahrir, the site of the crime, the police station was in a small, unmarked room. Perhaps it's not surprising that they don't want to draw attention to themselves these days. The door opened onto a burly man with a hefty mustache and a jolly grin. The room itself was painted a dull cream, with a few posters of Qur'anic verses hung on the walls, a couple file cabinets, and not much else. Unlike my first Middle Eastern theft experience, in Morocco, these policemen did not write out reports on colonial-era typewriters but rather scrawled mountains of testimony out by hand. They were gleeful to discover I spoke Arabic. In addition to the plainclothes officers, there was a girl my own age, her eyes ringed with dark kohl, who had also been pickpocketed, her little brother, and a pair of child thieves. They were less than 10 years old, probably, scraped and dirty and crouched on the floor in the corner of the room. Hey, was it these guys who robbed you? one of the officers laughed, trying to tease the kids as well as me. They weren't amused. I wondered what the older girl in the cheap red hijab was thinking; it was probably not her first time there and no one was paying her much attention, but she considered me with carefully narrowed eyes. I was marched to two other offices within the Sadat metro station for no apparent reason, and then brought back to page through the photo albums of known metro thieves. There was a book of women's photos and a book of men's. I tried to explain that I hadn't seen the thief and anyway, all the women standing around me were munaqabat (wearing the niqab) or nearly so. Meaning I couldn't distinguish one from the other as hard as I might try. The officer laughed. It's ok, we have photos of munaqabat, too! he said. The women's album was a hefty volume of rather similar photos, with captions indicating where they had been caught and brief physical descriptions. Many held signs in the photos that read "Sar'a" - theft. After this obviously unsuccessful effort, we waited while the officer in charge made a variety of calls and wrote pages and pages of reports on something (not my own matter). An Egyptian woman came in and announced that 1500 LE ($250) had been stolen out of her purse. They told her they were backed up and she should come back in three or four hours. A few minutes later, two husky middle-aged men burst into the office, shouting and gesticulating. One, I learned, was a plainclothes cop, the other a pickpocket he'd caught and dragged in. Still, it was not immediately easy to tell who was who - everyone seemed to be rather good-natured about the whole thing once the initial drama cooled down. Then the officers announced it was time for tea. The cabinet was opened and glass cups and Lipton's tea bags were produced for all. Somehow that seemed to be the way to conclude the visit: when the tea was done, we were sent merrily on our way with the promise that we'd be called if any of my cards were found.
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