The wide spectrum

I was musing over sort of wide spectrum of social classes I have experienced in Cairo at the house of a high up official in the European Commission last night during a goodbye party for one of my friends who is an intern there. In a room in one of the gated villas in Maadi (a lush suburb of Cairo), filled with diplomats, European officials, butlers, interns and students, it was a casual gathering for dinner and drinks. It was speckled with conversations in English, French and Italian; the increasing rage of women in the arab world, what furniture to buy for a plush new apartment with a view over the Gezira club, a book I'm reading, Taxi, a collection of short stories heard in the Cairene taxi, (I've met the author, the host of the party piped in) which provided a once-removed discussion of the unruly Egyptian street. Just as much in my comfort zone is the conversation with the old man on the 5 cent tram ride, crammed with begging children, men selling items from candy to crazy glue, women in niqabs, situated in the squalor of mannerless Egyptians. It would be hypocritical to say that I have experienced true poverty, or even come close to it, though it is soon on my checklist to go through the city of the dead. Nevertheless the acceptance of every day Egyptians for foreigners is overwhelmingly high and welcoming. The 'ahwa (coffee shop) where David and I go frequently to enjoy shisha and a game of backgammon or domino is filled with men interested in talking to us, and in an endearing way we have become "their foreigners." Last time we went, for two shishas and two teas, Abdu wouldn't let us pay more than five pounds (almost a dollar). We'll go to crowded malls to play pool (where some of our Egyptian friends might refuse to join us because of the mall's reputation), eat at the sha3bee (folk) places for the fuul and ta'maya (Egyptian popular dish), and ride public busses to get downtown. Then again, this is the type of lifestyle that we both enjoy, and embrace for being able to get a taste of down to earth life so easily. Of course, there are still the classy malls with 7$ movies, fancy restaurants with 30$ meals (if you splurge), and horseback riding by the pyramids for 6$ an hour. Within all of this, as a foreigner in Egypt, I see a mixture between having no class boundaries and the "third culture kid" syndrome; or in other words, one can transcend classes and build relationships much more easily and truly be able to get away with it because of no core sense of belonging in this culture.