How a taxi ride became a blessing in disguise

Hadeel al Shalchi

The weather has been slightly schizophrenic lately – cold, hot, cold, hot. But the sun was spectacular yesterday afternoon, with the sweetest breeze in the air.

I left the gym yesterday at around 3pm and hailed a taxi to my part of Cairo. The minute I get into the taxi, the cab driver’s mobile phone rings. He answers it.

“Yes, how’re things? Oh really! Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah! Alf mabrook! I will be at the hospital in exactly one hour! Alf mabrook!” he says into his receiver. He’s obviously congratulating someone on just having a baby.

I’m minding my business in the back seat, and he turns around to me, and says: “My wife just delivered twin girls! Twin girls! Entey weshek helw alaya! Weshek helw alhamdulillah (loosely translated as ‘your face is a blessing for me’)!”

I congratulate him and am pleased for him; I ask about the mother. He starts telling me the story, these are their first children, after seven years of marriage.

All his younger brothers and sisters got married after him and have children, but not them. In this part of the world, that’s scandalous; his parents started encouraging him to marry another wife who could bear him kids.

But how could he? Sahar is his life, they grew up together in Aswan, he loves her too much and decided to be patient.

And look! God is so good to him; he rewarded the man’s patience with two baby girls instead of one.

“Would it bother you if I lit a cigarette?” he asks me. “I really need one.”

Of course, go ahead, I say, but he’s not listening. He’s dabbing his wet eyes with Kleenex, his chin quivers as he drags long on his cigarette, letting the smoke out through his nose and it swirls around his head. He’s obviously emotional from the news.

The driver gets a few more phone calls from his in-laws, who are with his wife.

He has to go pick up 450 Egyptian pounds (Dh302) for the cost of an injection (it was a caesarean section birth, but his wife is OK). He’ll be there soon, say salam to my wife, tell her I’m on my way.

He’s still driving, but he turns around to me. A move that’s normal for drivers in Cairo. Hopefully the traffic will avoid us.

“You are such a blessing … what’s your name?”

I tell him.

“That’s what I’ll call one of the girls!”

“What?” I cry.

“Yes, I got the good news the moment you climbed into my taxi. You’re a blessing.”

I was flabbergasted, but sure enough when his family called again he told them: “Write down ‘Mariam and Hadeel’… yes Hadeel, Hadeel … I’m driving a girl called Hadeel now … wesha-ha zay el asal (her face is like honey).”

I’m still speechless. One of my favorite things about travelling and seeing new things is collecting stories that happen to me to retell them.

Be it running away from teenage gorillas in Rwanda, being on the receiving end of a sandstorm, or talking to an alleged spy through a prisoner’s dock. Stories are what make each of us unique.

And, so far, this is my most favorite, most beloved story.



*Published in the UAE's THE NATIONAL on October 31, 2009.