accommodation in ValenciaTaxi Driver Blues

Taxi drivers are perhaps the most ignored people in Egypt. We get into their cars, get them to drive us places, pay them, and then promptly forget them. Whenever one of them attempts to engage us in conversation, most of us do our best to shut them up and pretend that they don't exist. Sherif Abdel-Wehab, a twenty-six year old cab driver from Pyramid's Road, cannot understand why people try so hard to ignore them. "We sometimes drive for up to eight hours at a time with only our customers to talk to", he says, "isn't it only human to want to talk to someone to help pass the time? They see me as simply part of the car, not another fellow human being."
Sherif has only been driving a taxi for a few months, but he has had his fair share of annoying customers. Late one night, a man who stopped him on Pyramid's Road, and asked Sherif to drive him to the airport quickly. "At first I refused" related Sherif, "but he kept going on and on, and basically ended up begging me. He said he would pay me forty pounds if I would take him. The entire way there he didn't say a word. I told him a funny story, and he laughed, but the laughter was forced."
In the middle of a very one-sided conversation, Sherif went on to say that the man asked him to pull over. He then got into the back seat and told Sherif to wake him up once they got to the airport and then he immediately fell asleep. An agitated Sherif put forth "Just imagine, after he begged me to take him, he pretended I didn't even exist." When asked whether the man paid what was agreed upon, Sherif said, thank god he had. His exact words were "If he hadn't paid, I would have buried him where he stood."
Sometimes being treated as a vehicle accessory comes in handy. After picking up some Khaligi Arabs (about whom he has some very choice words for) from in front of a nightclub on Pyramid's Road, he was asked to drive them to a hotel downtown. On the way there, he overheard them mention that this was their first trip to Cairo and that they knew nothing about the city. "I took them around the entire Arab Republic of Egypt" he laughs, "Shubra, Maadi, Heliopolis, Mohandiseen, everywhere you can think of, we went. When they asked me why it was taking so long, I told them it was because of all the one way streets, and the stringent laws governing driving in Egypt."
Being ignored is only one of the problems a taxi driver such as Sherif faces. When the new seat belt law was introduced, he was one of the many caught unaware. "The price of a seat belt shot up from thirty pounds to over a hundred almost overnight" he complains, "where am I supposed to get that kind of money? I spend the few pounds I earn everyday on food and petrol, and put a bit extra away in case something happens to the car. And now I heard someone say that they're thinking of banning certain cars from being taxis. Where the hell am I going to buy a new car from, considering the fact that I won't be able to sell this one to anyone?"
Sherif's car is a miracle of human engineering and ingenuity. The fact that it is still moving speaks volumes about Italian manufacturing. His car, a Fiat, is built like a tank, and has had more makeshift repair jobs than even most Egyptian roads. The noises emanating from beneath the bonnet have even scared away the mice he had been sharing the car with. But don't let him ever hear you insult it. He proudly stated "This car has put up with more abuse than you can imagine, people can say whatever they want about it, I don't care, I wouldn't accept driving around Cairo in anything else. They just had better make sure they don't say anything about it in front of me."