Yesterday, Me and my friends agreed to meet after work somewhere 2 hours away from where I live. We didn’t have a car so we asked a coworker for a ride. He dropped us near where we’re heading but to reach there we had to take a “tomnaya”.

I had absolutely no Idea what a tomnaya was till i saw it. Imagine the child of a microbus and a Tuktuk. Ok, obviously we are taking this tomnaya, we will just have to figure out how to fit ourselves into it. I hunched my back and just took a dive. I hit a middle aged man and a woman holding a baby on my way in and they had absolutely no problem with it, obviously they dont mind having their personal spaces invaded, they had made peace with it.

Don’t get me wrong I am not a snob, I like public transportation as much as the next guy. I loved taking metros and buses around Europe. Just give me something even remotely humane to work with.

In Egypt you have to make peace with a lot of things. For example, you need to know how to butcher a goat. You need to learn how to cuss relentlessly to survive the ruthless streets of cairo. You need to know how to make crazy bargains because everyone is trying to steal from you. you are expected to know how to cross the roads like A freakin olympic. And  of course you need to know the quantum physics of how to squeeze yourself into a Tomnaya.