Condomonium

…yes,
you read that correctly 🙂 

That
Little Blue “Piece of Paper”

Here’s some heartfelt advice from your
resident foreign belly dancer living in Egypt. Never carry condoms on you or anywhere near you while traveling in Egypt. Never. Same goes for
tampons.  Most Egyptians don’t know what
they are, and when their curiosity gets the better of them, things can get a
bit… uncomfortable.

It just so happened that while I was returning
to Cairo one night after a show in the Red Sea area, the security check-point
officers decided they would stop our car and search our bags. The three guys
who were with me—the DJ, the whirling dervish, and the driver—stepped out of
the car for the officers to frisk them. I, being the only woman, was ordered to
stay inside until the search was over. As I sat there, I could feel the car bounce
as the officers opened the trunk and rummaged through our bags. And then, one
by one, the guys climbed back into the vehicle, each with a look of embarrassed
humiliation on his face. 

“What’s wrong? Did the officers find
anything they weren’t supposed to?” I asked them as we drove away. “I’m not
sure,” Mahmoud, the 20-old DJ replied. “They took something from your bag.” “What?
They stole something? My jewelry?” I asked. 
“No, they took a little blue piece of paper with writing on it,” he
said. “Huh? What little blue piece of paper?” I wondered if it was a
supermarket receipt. But why would they take that? “I don’t know what it was,” Mahmoud
said, “but the officer said it was very bad and that he could have arrested us”
After thinking about it for a while, I realized that the little blue piece of “paper”
Mahmoud was referring to was a condom!

Now, I had no recollection whatsoever of any
condoms in my belly dance suitcase (it’s not like I need them for work or
anything!), nor was I about to explain to three young Egyptian men what that
little blue “piece of paper” was. Instead, I remained silent for the rest of
the two-hour ride, musing over what those officers must have thought when they
found that condom in a car that contained three Egyptian males and one foreign
female wearing way too much makeup. So that’s why Mahmoud said the
officers contemplated arresting us…they probably thought I was a prostitute and
that the guys were my customers. Typical. 

“So why did they let us go?” I asked
Mahmoud at the end of the trip. “Because you’re American,” he answered. “What
does that mean?” I asked. “The officers were ready to arrest us until I told
them you are American. In Egypt, Americans are above the law.” “That’s not
really true,” I rebutted, admittedly only half convinced. Mahmoud went on
explaining how Egyptian citizens and authorities are afraid of messing with Americans
and generally avoid upsetting them at all costs. Maybe we have former President
Bush to thank for that?

Well then, I can’t argue with that now,
can I?  

Saved
by the Cockroaches

It’s no easier with tampons. Now these I KNOW
I placed in my belly dance bag because they come in handy every now and then. The
problem is that most Egyptian women don’t know what tampons are, let alone use
them. In Egypt (and the Muslim world in general), tampons are taboo. This is
due to the misconception that tampons take away virginity, an idea perpetrated
by the mainstream macho mentality (MMM) endemic in this part of the world. But
wait. It gets worse. MMM divides women who are not virgins into three
categories: virgins, wives, and whores. Well, I’m neither a wife nor a virgin,
so I guess that makes me…

…one very embarrassed foreigner when the
check-point officer searching my bag on a different occasion pulls out a tampon
and tries to open it out of curiosity! COULD. my life. get any worse
right now? It’s not enough that I’m standing in front of Egyptian authorities
with no passport, no working papers, tons of makeup and glittered lips. Now
this man is going to open up my tampon right in front of me.  

Beads of sweat rolled down my reddened
face as the officer twiddled with the yet unopened tampon. How was I going to
explain tampons to him? Lipstick? Extra large Q-tip? Pen with invisible ink?

And then, just as he was about to open it,
a horde of flying cockroaches invaded the makeshift check-point kiosk and
landed all over us. No. lie. It was a scene straight out of Exodus. The
fact that it happened in Egypt was not lost on me.

As it happened, my crazed reaction to the
roaches (screaming, jumping, and slapping everything around me including one of
the officers), completely diverted the officers’ attention from the tampons. None
of this was calculated, mind you. I really do have a phobia of cockroaches. My
phobia is so bad I moved out of my first apartment in Cairo on account of
seeing one roach in the bathroom. One! And that was only after a week of living
in the apartment.

It’s funny. As dysfunctional as Egypt is,
things have a way of working out. If it weren’t for those roaches, that officer
would have opened the tampon and proceeded to interrogate me about it. Instead,
he was amused by my reaction to the roaches, as well to my screaming something
like “Oh my God! I’m going to die! Get me away from these f***n cockroaches” in
Arabic. The officer had a good laugh. He said he did not believe I was
American. I swore to him that I was, but that I did not have my passport with
me to prove it (or any other form of ID, which was stupid of me). 

In the end, the roaches scattered, the officer
and I made nice, and he let me be on my way. You would think this experience
would teach me to take the tampons out of my belly dance bag. But no. I
have to make the same mistake over and over again. Until…

…Thieves
Steal my Money AND Open Up my Tampons!

This is really pathetic, but I have had
money stolen from my belly dance bag on three different occasions while
performing in Cairo. It is my fault for leaving the money in there. But the funny
part is that every time my money gets stolen, I find one of my tampons opened
up! It never fails.

This begs all sorts of questions. First,
why would the thief want to leave any indication that my bag had been tampered
with? Second, was it really that important that he satisfy his curiosity by
opening a tampon rather than just taking the money and leaving? Third, once he opened the tampon and still had no clue
what it was, why didn’t he just throw it out so I wouldn’t figure out that
someone went through my bag? 

I don’t have the answer to any of these
questions, but I can say that experiences such as these shed light on the extent
to which Egyptians are generally un(der)informed about most things sexual. My
gut tells me this is not a good thing, but I’m not going to say anything about
that.