I see I write

When my husband and I went to Cairo in 2010 we had a string of bad luck with taxi drivers. Each taxi ride was a struggle, because none of the taxi driver wanted to use meter so we had to negotiate beforehand, in a language we don't understand, and most of them were too impatient to try to understand us so they just sped through and left us the minute they failed to understand us. On occasions when we were fortunate enough to get a taxi, the rides were always so scary that we needed to hang on to dear life.

After a week in Cairo, we went to Alexandria. The first taxi driver that we met in Alexandria was no different than their Cairo counterparts and he almost made me want to swear off taking a taxi during my visit to Egypt. However, traveling through other means proved to be more difficult as most road signs are written in Arabic.

We resorted back to taking a taxi on our second day in Alexandria. The driver was a big burly man and we somehow agreed on a price for one-day city tour. I expected him to be no different from previous taxi drivers I met: reckless and rude. Therefore I was not surprised when he suddenly stopped the car and got out, leaving us without a single explanation.

He came back five minutes later, carrying a plastic bag. He got in, opened his plastic bag and took out three pieces of bread. He gave two pieces to us and one for himself. “Lunch” he said in a broken English.

I was so touched with this simple gesture that I almost hug the man. Although small, what he did was out of sincerity and there I was being judgmental and defeated the whole purpose of traveling.

I never found out what his name was. He tried telling me but I couldn’t understand a word he said. All we did was laughing in our whole journey anyway.

A few months after I left Egypt, the country was in turmoil. Every time I turned on the news I thought of him. I hope he is safe and sound wherever he may be.