Identity Crisis

When one is in Cairo, one must take advantage of some of the excellent services and products which are way cheaper than you could ever get them in the States. Massages run for about 20 dollars, eyebrow waxing is less than 5 dollars, and you can get fine quality tailored suits for under 100 dollars. For all the recent college grads who have run into the issue of buying their first business suit, sometimes it can be a little nauseating to realize that a nice suit can run anywhere from $300 to $800, and those aren't even tailored to fit. So with a closet full of linen skirts and baggy sweaters and a calender full of conferences in Dubai and interviews with politicians, I thought it was high time that I treated myself to of the benefits of being Cairo.

One of my friends, Dave, had already gone through the process and had some snazzy suits to show for it. He took me and some other curious Americans to the textile district of Cairo where we tucked into his favorite cloth merchant. We helped him pick out a nice shade of grey for his new suit, chatting up the shop owner. Dave had his suits made elsewhere by an independent tailor, but he wasn't sure if his tailor did women's suits, or if it was improper for a woman to be fitted by a man. So I seized the opportunity and asked the cloth merchant if he knew of a place where women could get suits, rather, of a place with women tailors. The cloth merchant nodded immediately saying that it is best for women to go to women tailors, and men to go to men, but that I was in luck. There was a woman tailor who worked with his store. Her name was Um Ibrahim, which literally means Mother of Ibrahim. However, the cloth merchant kept insisting on using the male pronoun (hoa) when talking about Um Ibrahim. I thought maybe this was a new colloquialism that I didn't know, and I continued to use the female pronoun (hea) when talking about my future tailor. I was a little confused, but brushed it off after all the comments of "women should tailor women" and because her name was Mother of Ibrahim. (Fun Fact, this title is extremely common in the Arab world. When women become mothers or men become fathers, they will often take on the name of their first born son. So if a family's first born son is named Mahmoud, the father may take on the name Abu Mahmoud, and the mother Um Mahmoud.) Continuing with the story, the cloth merchant helped me pick out what cloth I wanted, black terry wool, and then we planned that next Friday Um Ibrahim would take my measurements.

Come Friday, I return to the shop and the cloth merchant greets me and asks me to wait 10 minutes for Um Ibrahim to come. I sit, going through my calendar, waiting for my matriarch to arrive and take my measurements. I wonder what she will be like? Will she be old or young? Will she be covered or uncovered? Will she be overly friendly or cold? Lost in my thoughts, I hear the cloth merchant say "Um Ibrahim has arrived!" and I look up, and she is definitely a dude. Of all the questions I had pondered over, "will she be a he" was not one of them. For a split second, I thought about saying something. Not so much that I personally minded being measured by a man, but more so worried about what implications it might hold if somehow I was breaking a taboo that Egyptian women never broke. But I looked at Um Ibrahim. He was definitely a man, but he was an old man, grey, withered and most importantly, professional. I smiled, stood up, and went to the corner with him. He was very quick, and extremely polite and cautious not to touch me more than he had to. His hands were fast yet precise, and he didn't seem to think that this was out of the ordinary or that I was any more exciting than a plastic mannequin. He showed me some models of women's suits, and I picked out the one that I wanted. He smiled and said it would be ready in a week. I left the store excited for my new suit, but nonetheless slightly puzzled by the whole experience. Language barriers never cease to keep things interesting. I'm not sure if I will ever know what happened, but I do know this. If I ever have to make a trip to the gynecologist while I am here, you can be sure that I will require 3 forms of photo id to make sure that my doctor is in fact a woman.