The Woman Taxi Driver In Cairo

Her name is Nagat.
　I first saw her outside Cairo's airport terminal. A woman taxi driver - the only woman, for that matter, among a large crowd of her male counterparts.

　Do you know what it is like to arrive in a strange city in the middle of the night? Nobody, not even a ray of sunshine is here to greet you. When I walk out of the terminal, I am facing the crowd of taxi drivers milling about in front of every airport the world over. Here in Cairo, it is large and noisy. "Taxi!" "You want taxi?" I hear all round me.

　I feel a firm hand holding my left arm. "You want taxi, follow me," the woman says. She doesn't ask, she simply pulls me through the crowd. I follow her willingly. There is this moment when a tourist, particularly a woman, simply has to trust someone. We stop at a worn car. It has seen a better day, there are quite a few scrapes on its body, the tires are bald and there is a crack in the windshield. But it is a car for hire, and the woman will personally drive me. I breathe a sigh of relief when she puts my bag into the trunk, locks it and gets behind the wheel. "I will drive you, don't worry," she says.
　Nagat, as she now explains to me, works as a taxi driver several days and nights a week. She has another job, working in an office, but details of it remain vague. The little old car is not hers; it belongs to a boss from whom she in turn rents it whenever she can. She has been a driver ever since her husband died some ten years earlier and left her with two teenage kids and her parents to support.
　She knows every nook and cranny in and around Cairo - no easy feat. Cairo with its complex system of streets and lanes, its quarters and markets is like a labyrinth invented by ancient storytellers. Hundreds of mosques - many of which are masterpieces of Islamic architecture, old neighborhoods with houses boxed together, huge apartment buildings on the outskirts and the Nile calmly running through it; all are part of this overcrowded city.
　With a mild sense of humor around a deep core of understanding of human nature, Nagat takes control of my sightseeing schedule. Every morning punctually at nine o'clock, I can depend on seeing her short, solid frame outside the hotel lobby, her round face turning into a big smile as soon as she sees me coming down the stairs. Most every day, she wears an earth tone-colored Jellaba. Her movements are energetic and she doesn't waste any time. Her determined approach seems to have grown on a bed of economy, on the necessity to get as much done as she possibly can.
　What becomes clear to me soon as she drives me from museum to pyramid, from one part of town to the opposite, is this: she is a true exception here. Wherever we stop, be it for a cup of tea during a break or upon arriving at a historical site where her male colleagues gather in the parking area - everywhere, she is being noticed. Men walk up to her in the car with questioning faces. As she tells me, they all have one question first of all: "Are you a taxi driver?" She then explains in a few short sentences, and I see the men's faces soften, smile and respectfully and kindly chat with her. This scene repeats itself over and over again. I get the sense that she invites goodwill from the people she meets.
　Nagat is proud and independent. One day, as I find her waiting outside a museum, she is just taking a spare tire out of the trunk of the taxi. One of the bald tires had finally gone flat, and she was going to change it herself. Several curious people gather around her and she receives offers of help - but no, she wants no part of that. In her efficient, deliberate manner, she changes the tire, and having done so, washes her hands with bottled water, gets in the taxi and asks "Where to now?"
　Should you find yourself at Cairo's airport, look for Nagat outside the international arrival hall. If you are lucky, you will have a chance to see Cairo through the eyes of a woman taxi driver.