284 CultureShock! Egypt
You tell them who you are and that you will wait on the
porch for Mr Moustafa to come home.
You tell your taxi driver to wait before you go to the door,
just in case no one is at home. After being told no one
is there, you leave, go have a coffee or tea, and return in
30 minutes to an hour later.Comments
, and are definitely bad choices. Responses or
are acceptable, but probably is preferable under the
circumstances. The reason you got the response you did was
because there were only women at home when you called;
or possibly it was a servant answering the door. In this case,
it would be inappropriate for you to be allowed into the
house. The first mistake was coming early. For one thing,
because of the problems with Cairo traffic, Mr Moustafa may
have been delayed in traffic. Alternatively, even though Mr.
Moustafa told you to be there at six, he may not really expect
you to be exactly on time, much less early. To avoid this kind
of situation, a couple of things could be done. First, don’t
come early. Second, you could stop somewhere close to Mr
Moustafa’s house and use a public phone to determine if he
is there or you could call before you leave just to reconfirm
that Mr Moustafa will be there when you arrive. In any event,
give Mr Moustafa a little extra time and never challenge the
word of the woman answering the door.SITUATION 5
You (a woman) and three of your women friends are out
shopping and need a taxi to take you back home. It is a busy
time of day and taxis are hard to find. You all decide to get into one small taxi which will hold
only three in the back so that one of you must sit in the
front seat with the driver.
Even though it will cost more and may take more time, you
get two taxis, so two can sit comfortably in each one.
You decide to wait until you see one of the station wagon-
sized taxis. Although you may have to wait for some time