mesh awel mara nerkabooha...

something interesting always happens whenever i make the trip from alex to cairo.  the past two times i went, i encountered some sort of major discussion over the fare of the mashroo3 (micro bus).

during the first incident, i was leaving from sidi gaber - as those in alex may know, how long it takes to fill the mashroo3 depends on what time you leave (esp since sidi gaber doesn’t have as much traffic to cairo as ma7atet masr does).  anyhow, after waiting ~45 minutes and finally having enough people to be ready to go, the man announces that the charge will be 25le (the normal is 22).  people were outraged and argued, etc - mainly because of the chicanery involved (waste 45 minutes of our time and then tell us that you’re charging more, so we either go ride another bus (and wait another 45 minutes to save 3le, or we deal with it and pay)).

the man didn’t budge about the price, and people stayed on board (but were disgruntled).  one lady, during the argument, said “mesh awel mara nerkabooha”  (this happened to be the first time i heard the alexandrian slang of changing the form of a verb to something i can’t yet explain - it should be “mesh awel mara nerkabha…” - go figure).  later, the man decided to stop on the way to use the restroom and the lady became angry - he offered to let her take another microbus the rest of the way if she wasn’t happy (but she decided to stay).

i had a similar experience yesterday when coming back from cairo - the man wanted 25, but the people got their way of paying 22.  afterwards, a huge argument broke out with the driver about turning the ac on (he didn’t want to turn it on until we got on the highway).