Egyptian home remedy for growing your very own face mole!

Ever wanted a mole on your face? Now you can have one with my grandmother's home remedy!

Step One: Take a needle and heat the end with a lighter
Step Two: Prick your face numerous times with said needle until your face bleeds
Step Three: Dab milk onto the self-inflicted wound
Step Four: Draw your desired mole onto this milk-stained wound, with an eyebrow pencil
Step Five: Leave your face alone for an entire day then when you wake up voila! You have your very own face mole to love and cherish as long as you both may live.

This was a genuine home-remedy during my grandmother's twenties and thirties. My mother's mole is in fact a product of this.

Getting conned in Khan el Khalili

I am almost going to swear to myself that I will NEVER go to any touristy areas in Egypt again - Luxor, Aswan, Khan el Khalili - all places that drive me crazy! I think I'll stick to Shubra from now on.

Yesterday I went with my sister and cousin to Sidna el Hussein/Khan el Khalili/El Mosky. I wanted to show my cousin a famous cafe called El Fishawi, but I had a feeling we wouldn't be enjoying our time there.

I swear not a single sentence was exchanged between the three of us during our entire time at the cafe. Instead we were shooing and heshing the salespeople and beggars that came at us from every angle. Not 5 seconds (no exaggeration!) went by without someone approaching us.

I took to keeping my head down, as if in some sort of hallucinatory trance. My little sister, was still not used to assertively telling the salespeople and beggars to 'TAKE A HIKE!!!' Instead, she gave them her beautiful smile and said in the kindest voice she could possible muster, 'La, shukran' (no, thank you).

I felt it was safe to lift my head out of my trance for a little while, just to survey the situation, when I found my sister looking at a set of 'genuine silver bracelets and earrings'.

'It's genuine, it's genuine', the salesperson (who looked like he'd just recently been released from jail) assured us. 'Look...', he then took it upon himself to set fire to the jewellery with his lighter, in an attempt to show us that the colour didn't disappear. He then kindly wrapped the bracelet around my sister's wrist, causing her much discomfort from the burning heat, radiating from the bracelet.

The starting price was 80LE. It then went down to 50LE. We said we didn't want it. Then, things turned nasty.

'Where are the earrings?' he said.
'They're in your hands', we replied.
'No, no the other pair'.

We proceeded to search under the tables and chairs for the missing earrings. Something told me that he was setting us up but I went along with the act anyway.

When we didn't find the earrings he tried even harder to sell Yvonne the bracelet, blaming her for losing his precious merchandise. I couldn't take it any longer so I screamed at Yvonne, 'YVONNE SAY NO!!!!!!!!!!'

This got the entire cafe staff to crowd round us. The salesman was shouting that he wanted to take us to the police station. I didn't quite understand what was happening, but I knew we had to leave. The cafe staff were crowding round the salesman, and we slipped out from another entrance.

After buying a few souvenirs and gifts in the bazaars, it was time to go home. Our legs were as heavy as lead, and we could hardly bare to stay on our feet a moment longer. Unfortunately for us, not a single minibus had an empty seat.

After 10 minutes we heard a fight in one minibus, between the driver and a female passenger.

'Get out then!' the driver yelled.

'Yes, this is our chance!' I thought to myself. But we were too slow. A man jumped into one of the two vacated seats. But I didn't give up.

I jumped onto the minibus and sat on the only vacated seat. My sister jumped on after me and sat on my lap. Then my cousin sat on my sister's lap. Not a single one of us could be classed as 'child-sized', so this was quite a feat.

Three of us were sitting on a seat meant for one person. We couldn't even shut the minibus door, so as we sped over the bridge that connects El Hussein with the nearest metro station, the door was still open, and we were just waiting for a sharp turn to send us flying out onto the bridge.

Thankfully we made it all in one piece. One woman sitting behind us smiled at me and said, 'They should erect a statue in your honour'. I didn't understand what she meant exactly, but I think it was because I was carrying two almost fully-grown women on my lap, or maybe because I was crazy enough to even attempt such a ridiculous travel arrangement.

Drivers and motorcyclists that drove beside us pointed and laughed at the tower of bodies squashed into the minibus. I think what really shocked them - since this in a common occurrence in Egypt - was that two of the girls looked almost certainly as if they were tourists. Tourists in Egypt never ride minibuses, let alone form human towers in them. I couldn't stop laughing the entire way.

The lack of enforced rules in Egypt completely contrasts with England's strict regulations. But although the lack of enforced rules in Egypt may cause much chaos and confusion, it gives life plenty of flavour.

Cairo never ceases to surprise me

On any day I venture out into the big, bustling city of Cairo I know one thing for certain: I will see something I've never seen before, that will make me question humanity.

Today began quite normal. I had my Arabic lesson Down Town, battled with hundreds of flies (I do not take the word battle to be the slightest exaggeration. There, in the cafe that I take my lessons, I am faced with an endless assault of flies. They try to abuse me and violate me in any way that they can. At one point there were flies on my lips, flies on my eyes and flies all the way up my arm that it looked like I was doing some demented dance to wave them off), learnt some new Arabic words and drank tea.

Then, as I waited for my friend to use a restaurant toilet I took it upon myself to spy at a very unusual woman.

She was dressed in a pink suit and had her hair covered with a white swimming cap-type bonnet. She had a Styrofoam box in her hand which she was eating rice from. The way she ate was mesmerising. I think she may have had an eye problem, but she would put her face so close to her food that I though it might have ended up sticking to it, then when she had located the secret wherabouts of her food, she proceeded to take quick shovel-fulls of rice.

She was eating whilst standing up (as she had ordered take away), and she chose to stand under the big menu at the front of the shop. But in her attempt to make herself invisible in her conspicuous spot, she pushed her shoulder onto the nearby wall, as if trying to become one with the wall.

After she had finished eating she shuffled (she was either unable to or wished not to expend too much energy lifting her feet off the ground) to the nearby bin and threw her box in. She then shuffled back to the place under the menu that she had claimed her own.

I thought she had generously given me my fair share of entertainment but there was still more to come.

After rummaging through her brown bag she produced a large medicine bottle.

'Oh', I thought to myself, 'She's eaten her lunch so now she's gonna take her medecine'.

She opened the bottle and poured some of the illustrious liquid into the palm of her hand. She then rubbed it into her hands.

'Oh, so it's some sort of hand sanitiser', I decided.

Then she smothered her mouth with yet more liquid.

'Mouth sanitiser?'

Then she smeared it all over her clothes.

'Clothes sanitiser?????'

My friend reappeared and we made our way to the Metro. I was reluctant to leave that interesting woman, feeling a need to discover what she was about, but I decided not to pursue my inquiries in case she started beating me. I tried in vain to understand what was in that brown medicine bottle, but I had nothing.

The next incident of the afternoon was in the metro. The police were arresting the sellers that sell tissues, jewellery, tables, sweets and clothes on the metro, so there was a lot of commotion as these sellers tried to get away.

After one such episode a woman wearing the full face veil stood up and started addressing the metro carriage. I've obviously seen woman wearing the niqab (face veil) before, but this woman must have been 6 feet tall. From head to toe she was wearing black. There was not even a hole for her to see through - she had fabric over her eyes so I have no idea how she stopped herself from bumping into things.

The woman began by making a few statements about protecting our personal belongings and keeping our bags close to our bodies. She then went on to preaching about the need to read the Holy Qu'ran because it is the word of God.

Last week a woman was distributing leaflets that said some members of the State Police were wearing the niqab and going around telling people to dress properly. The leaflet (Muslim Brotherhood material) advised us to ignore these people and (in proper Egyptian fashion) to take off our shoes and begin beating them. I could just imagine myself doing that.

At the time I was trying to figure out whether this woman was part of the state police - 'Should I start hitting her with my shoes?', I wondered.

It was amazing to me that this woman, who was speaking to the entire carriage in a confident and authoritative voice, could have been ANYONE. Is it true then that anyone can speak to anyone if they do so in a confident and assured tone of voice? Can sounding confident help you to get away with anything?

Every day I venture out into the big, bustling city that is Cairo, I feel that I not only learn new things about the World and people, but through my interactions with said people I learn a lot about myself.