With an hour to kill before my train was scheduled to depart from Aswan for Cairo, I decided to take a walk around a quiet city park to read my Lonely Planet Guide and plan my next few days back in Cairo.
There were plenty of local people relaxing in the park, but I finally managed to find an empty bench I could sit down on and read. The benches in the park were always paired, with two benches positioned back to back and facing opposite directions. My set of benches was empty on both sides.
While I started to read, I heard some Egyptian girls sit down on the bench behind me. As I continued to read my book, one of them said, “Hello”. I turned, smiled, and said hello back, figuring they just wanted to practice their English. There were three: two women in their late teens or early twenties, and a young girl of about 8. The woman saying hello to me happened to be very attractive.
I went back to reading my book. The same woman said “Hello” again, but this time added “My name is” and told me her name (which I can’t remember). I smiled and told her who I was. Every time I said anything to them, they seemed to look somewhat baffled at what I was saying as they tried to digest its meaning. Their English skills were obviously very limited.
I returned to reading my book when the same woman blurted out, “I love you.” I love you? I mean, what do you say? Thinking she was joking, I turned and said: “But you don’t even know me!” She looked very concerned that she couldn’t understand what I had said. She looked to the other woman for help in understanding me. I kept trying to talk to all three of these girls, but they just couldn’t understand what I was saying. The only one smiling was the little girl. I went back to my book. The other woman never really said anything to me but “hello”. She seemed to be there to support her friend.
Again, this woman said, even more forcefully, “I love you!” and again I could only giggle nervously. Every time I laughed, the little girl would giggle — but the woman looked more and more desperate and more and more forcefully said “I love you” again and again as she stared straight into my eyes. It was as though she was trying to put some voodoo on me, getting more and more frustrated that it wasn’t working. All the English these girls seemed to know was “Hello”, “My name is”, and “I love you”. I couldn’t ask them to explain because they couldn’t understand a word I was saying.
Throughout this whole ordeal, older Arab men would occasionally walk past my bench and bark something at her in Arabic. She would usually sass them back in Arabic. Although most people seemed to be Muslim in the area, there were Catholic schools in town, and it was very possible she was Christian and not subject to Muslim customs — but I got the impression she may have been on a mission to be rescued from Egypt.
Perhaps she was placed into an arranged marriage she wanted no part of. Perhaps she was about to reach a point in her life when she would have been expected to start wearing traditional Muslim garb, such as a head covering. Perhaps she just wanted to leave that part of the world. I will never know. And she obviously had no grasp of the complexities of moving to another part of the world. It’s not like I could have just taken her along with me.
Eventually a young man, perhaps a cousin, dropped by to talk with her after observing or hearing about what was going on. Soon he was joined by an older man, perhaps an uncle. They were both very polite to me and seemed to know a bit more English than the girls, but they also seemed quite concerned about her behaviour and were lecturing her in Arabic.
In the end, I had to leave to catch my train. I shook each of their hands, said goodbye, and headed off on my journey to Cairo. I cringed as I walked away, thinking that might have been offensive to them. The little girl seemed obviously off the hook because of her age, but I was quite concerned for the welfare of the other two women. Especially the one who repeatedly said she loved me. I just hope nothing bad happened to them afterwards. Such behaviour in that part of the world is unheard of. I’m sure she was taking a big risk even talking to me.
