We have a doorman/apartment manager/landlord liason called a bawa’ab. Our bawa’ab’s name is Goma, and he is quite an interesting-looking guy. He has short hair and no facial hair, always wears a long grey robe, and is as cross-eyed as it is possible to be.
Gom
a or one of his family members always sits outside the apartment building. They are available to help us with groceries, open the door for us, be the go-between between us and repairmen, deliverymen, or taxi drivers, and help us contact our landlord if necessary. (We do have the landlord’s phone number, but Goma serves as a runner between our two houses. The landlord lives next door.)
Goma has a wife and six children. The little girls are the ones I see most frequently, and they seem to be outside from about 8 AM until at least midnight. I don’t know when they sleep. The Egyptian children play on the porches of buildings or in the street itself. They rarely look clean, and small children Luke’s size are often unattended or left with an older sibling. Goma’s kids are very sweet and helpful. They love to accompany our visitors or service people inside.
We won Goma over early when we arrived home from Carrefour (think Wal-Mart) with bags and bags of apartment stuff. Goma and his family helped us bring it in, and Jason tipped them 50 LE. That’s equivalent to about $10, and is the same amount we pay Goma each month. It was a good thing we won him over, because of what happened on our way home from another trip to Carrefour. We’d negotiated a fare of 20 LE with the cab driver. When we got to our apartment we got out of the cab and handed the driver his money. He began protesting, gesturing wildly, trying to get us to pay him more. We refused, and he continued his shouting. Jason shouted back. He even got the scary red-eyed look he gets when he’s really, really mad. Goma came to join the argument and leapt to our defense. We left Goma to it and went on in the house.
We have other friends who do not have such helpful, good-natured bawa’abs, so we’re very thankful for Goma.
Gom
a or one of his family members always sits outside the apartment building. They are available to help us with groceries, open the door for us, be the go-between between us and repairmen, deliverymen, or taxi drivers, and help us contact our landlord if necessary. (We do have the landlord’s phone number, but Goma serves as a runner between our two houses. The landlord lives next door.)Goma has a wife and six children. The little girls are the ones I see most frequently, and they seem to be outside from about 8 AM until at least midnight. I don’t know when they sleep. The Egyptian children play on the porches of buildings or in the street itself. They rarely look clean, and small children Luke’s size are often unattended or left with an older sibling. Goma’s kids are very sweet and helpful. They love to accompany our visitors or service people inside.
We won Goma over early when we arrived home from Carrefour (think Wal-Mart) with bags and bags of apartment stuff. Goma and his family helped us bring it in, and Jason tipped them 50 LE. That’s equivalent to about $10, and is the same amount we pay Goma each month. It was a good thing we won him over, because of what happened on our way home from another trip to Carrefour. We’d negotiated a fare of 20 LE with the cab driver. When we got to our apartment we got out of the cab and handed the driver his money. He began protesting, gesturing wildly, trying to get us to pay him more. We refused, and he continued his shouting. Jason shouted back. He even got the scary red-eyed look he gets when he’s really, really mad. Goma came to join the argument and leapt to our defense. We left Goma to it and went on in the house.
We have other friends who do not have such helpful, good-natured bawa’abs, so we’re very thankful for Goma.
1 comment:
See "Big Tippers" super service..it is a universal language!!
Keep the blogs coming.
Tara
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