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.