Why you should never talk to strangers

This story must be prefaced with a disclaimer: I'm not the type of person to go around getting in real trouble. I'm willing to do pretty dumb things, but only if I'm good and sure it won't end up causing myself or others serious harm. I have been and will be very cautious about the people here, and I use common sense. I can take care of myself, and I know how to surround myself with people who can help.

Well! That said, I had a pretty odd evening last night.

Hira, Hannah, Zenit, and I went out after dinner for a walk and a snack, as dinner here is about the same quantity of food as breakfast in the states. We got some falafel, and met the rest of our group at a big movie theater, to see our first Egyptian film! Unfortunately, they had miscounted when getting the tickets and only had two left for the sold-out movie. So, the 4 of us all went to a next-door movie theater and saw another movie together, call Al-Farah, the Wedding, which was very good, (but confusing, of course!). After the movie we hung out in a coffee house for a while drinking tea, and then began to walk back down the street to the tram, window-shopping along the way.

A cute kid about our age or a little younger was selling balloons, and handed each one of us one, which we refused, of course. People will plunk their merchandise in your lap all the time and walk away, then come back and expect you to pay up. But this guy seemed legit. We got balloons, matching the colors that we were wearing. Sweet!

We kept walking along the street, and balloon guy walked with us, asking us about how we like Egypt, etc etc. All of a sudden, this old, homeless-looking guy with no more than 3 teeth total comes up and starts arguing with the balloon dude, thinking that he was bothering us. We decide to take this opportune moment to escape from both of them, and run down the street, balloons in hand, toward the tram. On the way, Hira trips! Slides! On the sidewalk! But we pick her up and leap onto the tram, into the women-only car, phew! Safe. ...Or so we thought.

Then our buddy the balloon seller gets on the tram. All of the other women are glaring at him, and us, as if we somehow let him into their domain. So we tell him to go, but he stays to pay for our tickets. All of a sudden we see a toothless grin pop up in the open window beside us, the homeless old man is back to join the fun. The tram is starting to move now and the old man has disappeared, so we yell at balloon man until he leaves. He does this by climbing, through the window of the women's section to the men's section of the tram. We decide to get off on the stop before our dorms, to ditch the balloon kid before we head back.

So, we disembark from the tram, and Hira's toe is bleeding so we visit a little shop to get some water and disinfectant, and the nice man at the store helps us out, so we give him our balloons for his three young kids. In the meantime, the balloon guy has spotted us again, and comes to save us from the guy working at the store. We finally make him understand that the man is just helping us. Just then, who shows up but the crazy, grinning, toothless old man, who we originally thought was good-intentioned, but now just keeps standing closer and closer. Ew. We all are walking back and forth, trying to get the old guy to leave, so the men who are sitting outside the cafe on the street stand up and help us chase him away, nearly breaking out into a fight for us. They tell us to sit for a while so they can make sure he doesn't come back, and pull up some chairs, and hand us cups of tea. Okay. Cool. We make plans to meet up with the rest of the group, since their movie is over now too, and we call our friend Scott to come sit with us, because balloon guy is starting to get creepier.

Anyway, Scott arrived, and we all walked together to meet the group, and we ran into these two really big protective Egyptian guys, Nadir and Ahmed, who work with our program, and they caused a scene in the street that drew a pretty big crowd and almost broke out into the second fight of the evening! We had to shove 7 girls and one guy into a car and escape to the Corniche because of innocent little Sabir the balloon boy.

As usual, the night ended happily with our habitual drinking tea by the sea, but man. Who would have thought we'd get involved with such a mushkila just by accepting a free balloon!