After spending a wonderful week and a half in Lebanon and Syria (a post about the trip is in the works), I returned to Egypt last Saturday. As usual, we wasted no time yesterday getting right back into the swing of the things at Alexandria University. In addition to my classes, however, I also taught my first English class. A friend of mine on the program had spent a month teaching English classes at a private study program in Alexandria, and he handed the reins over to me for my last month in the city. This is my first experience teaching English as a second language, and because the students are still at a pretty basic level I'm speaking Arabic just as much as English with them. Of course I am trying to get them to speak in English as much as possible, and I feel like a broken record after repeating to them over and over that I would rather hear them make mistakes in English than speak correctly in Arabic. After talking about some general goals for the class, we worked on using the phrase "at the same time" to describe two different actions in the same sentence. I am going to be teaching for two hours each Sunday and Tuesday for the next 4 weeks, and I am looking forward not only to my first chance to teach English as a foreign language but also to the chance to improve my Arabic because of all the explanations I have to give them about English grammar or the meanings of English words.
The one drawback about the program is that the language center is located far away from the dorms, so I have to take a thirty minute train ride there and back. The train is a true Egyptian train - it works, but it certainly is a little bit rough around the edges as evidenced by the doors that do not close and the cacophony of screeches as it hurtles (or sometimes crawls) down the the tracks. On the train, there is a mix of all types of people from every different level of society: businessmen riding home in their three piece suits, mothers weighed down with huge bags of groceries, children playing around in the aisles, and beggars, too. The train also presents a significant business opportunity to a number of vendors hawking little candies or gizmos and gadgets throughout the ride. I was inspired to write this post because of the odd, but also effective, method that the vendors use to sell their goods. Most of them will walk down the aisle calling out what they have to sell and at what price, and in addition to that they will actually intentionally drop their ware into your lap and walk right past you. The first time I had this happen to me I was obviously quite confused - I didn't ask for the chew candy that the vendor had just dropped into my lap, but at the same time he just kept on walking down the aisle without even making eye contact with me. Watching the vendor continue to hand out his candy to the rest of the people on the train, I soon realized that his plan was to walk up and down the train car handing out candy to everyone, and then retrace his steps collecting the candy back from those who didn't want it or collecting money from those who did. The astuteness of this strategy became clear when I saw a number of kids imploring their parents to buy the candy that they were now holding in their hands. So as the vendor came ambling back down the car to collect his candy once again, he managed to make about five sales to parents with young children or adults enticed by the candy that they had been holding in their hand and staring at for the past few minutes.
Being a train vendor is by no means a ticket to earning a comfortable living, but I love the unique style that the vendors employ as they hawk their goods. It's much harder to say no to a piece of candy or give it back after holding it in your hand for a few minutes and imagining the sweet taste and the enjoyment you will get out of eating it.
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