The Bus Driver

This is Ahmed, FUE's larger-than-life bus driver extraordinaire. Ahmed quite literally rules the road when he's behind the wheel of the fifty-seater Number 45 and weaves in and out of the Cairo traffic effortlessly with his horn and radio blaring loudly for the duration of the journey.

Ahmed doesn't speak English and so our communication is pretty patchy and generally involves lots of hand gestures. As you can see from his expression, he wasn't exactly uncomfortable with my request to take his photo. In fact, it seems to have provided the perfect opportunity for him to get a little bit...how can I say this...friendlier?

Egyptian men are very affectionate towards each other and can often be seen greeting each other with kisses on the cheek and hugs. Observing conversations between the bus drivers you can see a lot of touching and play-fighting as part of the way they communicate. It seems that the very act of taking Ahmed's photo has broken down any social guardedness he may have been observing and shoved me up a notch on the affection scale. He immediately called his mates over to partake in some light-hearted piss-taking of which I only managed to escape from by cheekily spouting some nonsense in Arabic about wishing my life away (taught to me earlier by a colleague).

When I was dropped off at my stop, he kissed the palm of his hand before offering it for a hand-shake. I'm not sure if I was meant to do the same. I hope not. Jeez, the things I do for blip. If I get crushed in a manhug with this guy, I'm blaming you lot.

A text message from a friend yesterday asking 'What is with the campness, does Larissa know what she married?!' meant I had a bit of explaining to do about this bliptogether malarky.










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