The Relentless Pursuit of Baksheesh

I've really warmed to Egypt (appropriately so, because it is amazingly hot), but the relentless pursuit of baksheesh does wear on you. Baksheesh, as we've discussed, is that cross between a tip and a bribe that gets brought up a lot by cab drivers or officials or guards or the local touts. That said, it made me think of a couple things. One, it really depends upon where you are. I've spent hours and hours walking the streets of Cairo and was completely left alone. It's when you go into major tourist areas, such as the pyramids, that it kicks into high gear. The point being that you're an American who has decided to spend his princely wealth and you sort of have it coming to you - and, let's face it, as the world's leading military, diplomatic and economic power, the US gets into their pockets far more than they will ever get into ours. So, you can walk through suburbs like Zamalek or downtown areas like central Cairo and essentially be invisible - just steel your resources for the tourist centers. The reality is that most of these folks are so astonishly poor - and we're talking about absolute poverty here, not the inability to get the MLB package on cable - that the extra dollar or two they squeeze out of you means profoundly more to them than to you. Relax (which I'm not always good at doing). Secondly, it's hardly Egypt alone that produces this type of behavior. Usually, it's just an annoyance, but every so often you'll have a bit of a clash (which can usually be avoided if you have a temper less volcanic than mine - meaning everyone on earth can avoid it). I've had a tout in downtown Nairobi accuse me of being an racist because I didn't want to hear his story - which is a classic strategy because it plays into our liberal guilt. When I was in India with my father we had a frustrated donkey driver yell at us, "you're poor and a very bad man," because we didn't want to take a ride - for the Indians, who perceive all Americans as fabulously wealthy, this was the ultimate insult. It's like an Indian taxi driver told me one time when he was trying to royally screw me on a fare (meaning, probably, about 17 cents more than I should have paid, but after a while you just fall into the trap of haggling over everything) - "but you're so big and I'm so small," which means that you're so rich and I'm so poor. And, as much as I like to romanticize India, it was probably a lot worse there.