Taxis

Last night as Mel and I were waiting for a cab in our neighborhood, I greeted a random man walking past us in Arabic.

Me: Good evening
Him: Good evening. (He paused and looked at me with a puzzled expression)
Him: Do you know me?
Me: No.
Him: Are you just saying "good evening" to be friendly?
Me: Um, yes. (I looked at Melanie puzzled as I often greet random people in the street)
Him: Why don't you come to my house to have some tea if you have the time?
Me: I would like that, but we are on our way to meet some friends.

I was struck by the randomness and sincerity of his invitation and would have liked to have taken him up on it. For one thing, it would have been far cheaper than our night turned out to be, but we had fun just the same.
Next we got into a cab and the driver proceeded to drive us in circles around our neighborhood instead of directly to our destination. Just when I was about to say something to him, Melanie lost it and started yelling. He didn't understand English, but her frustration and anger was unmistakable and he knew he had been busted. We were not new, naive American tourists. We knew his little scam. I told him to stop and he started rambling about how he didn't know the way, blah, blah. We got out and didn't pay him a single piaster. Then we walked down to the main street and flagged down a new taxi. I opened the door and greeted him politely and he returned my greeting. I asked if he was honest. He was confused and asked what I meant. I could tell he was so we got in and I told him the story of the last cabbie who tried to rip us off. He took us directly to our destination and then when I tried to pay he refused my money. Most of the cabbies here are good, but some of them are criminals and will try to take you the long way home to get extra fare out of you. Luckily, this is a rare occurrence. Some of them are quite nice. Just last week, we were invited to a cabbie's home for mansef (a mountain of rice with yummy lamb meat on top that you eat with your hands). Mel wasn't comfortable going to a random person's house for dinner so I politely declined, but he gave me his phone number in case we changed our minds. I guess cabbies here are a mixed bag like anything else.