Episode 42, in which our hero narrowly escapes a car wreck

Today started wonderfully, as I sat on Sharia al-Muizz sketching a madrassah for a few hours this morning.  As the morning turned to afternoon, I was getting hot, and the flies had descended on me for some reason.  I packed up my sketchbook and walked to a nearby falafel stand to get my daily sandwich.  Then I sat in a cafe, drinking coffee and eating my lunch.  This paragraph is generally true for most of my days in Cairo.  However, today took a turn for the strange.

After paying the guy at the cafe, I hopped on a minibus to get back downtown.  There was a cute exchange between an older lady and me.  Fare is 75 piastres, and after we each paid a pound, the driver gave fifty cents change.  I insisted she take it.  She insisted that I take it.  (This is a pretty classic Arab game, often involving who enters a room first, who gets the first serving of food, etc.)  Finally, she points to my shirt.  "Get yourself a decent shirt....and a haircut," she told me.  Burned.

About five minutes later, as we passed by the Islamic Art Museum, a taxi started inching into our lane.  The driver laid on the horn.  Then BAM.  I don't know quite what happened, but it ended up totaling both vehicles, smashing out all the passenger-side windows on the minibus, and covering me in glass.  I had hung onto the bench in front of me during the collision (no seatbelts, Welcome to Egypt!), so other than a bruised elbow, sore leg, and glass in my hair, I was unscathed.

The taxi driver, bleeding from a small cut on his head, was yelling at our driver, who was having none of it, while I sat on the curb, hyperventilating, as I am wont to do.  A crowd of passengers and onlookers had gathered around the wreck.  A mechanic from a nearby autoshop walked up to me.  "Hamdulilah as-salama."  Thanks be to God, you're okay.  "Hamdulilah," I responded.  He invited me to have a drink in his garage.  Walking over, I realized shards of broken glass had filled my shoes. [Cue Annie Lennox reference.]  Stumbling into his shop, he got me a glass of water.  He was an observant Muslim, so a drink that would have done me real good was unavailable.

After chatting and calming down, he offered to give me a ride. I declined, and I walked the rest of the way downtown, stopping twice for banana smoothies.  I figure a near-death experience deserves some reward.

[Answers to expected questions:

1. Yes, Mom, I'm really okay.

2. No, Mom, I'm not going to go to the hospital.

3. Yes, Andrew, it was onion falafel.]