Of This One Big Man

Tonight I went outside, then suddenly I remember about this one elderly man. He is not so old. I think he is in his 30’s.

I stepped out from my imarah which is an Arabic word for building and I looked around. It has been a habit to look for that ammu which also an Arabic word we use to call an elderly man. He has a big body, wide shoulder, shaved beard and usually he wears worn out brown sweater with a black turban wrapped around his head.

However, he was not around tonight.

He usually cycles his bike every night along my street but tonight he was not. That one time I came back from a tuition class, I saw him stopped his bicycle at the roadside and quickly dig into a bunch of rubbish at one spot just beside the road.

Let me picture this to you. In Egypt, there is no concept of recycling nor separating rubbish and throwing them away into diferent different kind of dustbins or whatnots. It only needs one person to put their plastic of rubbish in a spot, then another people will follow and throw away theirs, exactly at the same place. That’s why sometimes the rubbish got messed up really bad here. But who cares? Nobody really cares because they are taught to coexist and live in rubbish since young.

So, this ammu dig into the messed up rubbish in front of my imarah. It was not a one time I see this ammu doing what he did. Almost every time I walk along the street at night, he does the same. And he carries along with him a huge somewhat-like-mengkuang bag (if you guys ever went to pick up durian in the farm, then you guys may know how this bag looks like) behind his back. So, imagine this sort of picture of him cycling and carrying round that huge mengkuang bag.

Yesterday also, I walked home from a tuition class. I spotted him at the other end of the road while my house is located at the other end, like 500m from where the ammu was. Still the ammu did his job looking for boxes or maybe glass bottles and aluminium cans; anything that can be sold.

Halfway of my walking along that street, the ammu intercepted me with his bicycle, but I realized that his mengkuang bag was not full like always. So I thought, it’s okay ammu, the night is still early. You still have a long time to search for more.

After several steps, I reached my building. Then, my eyes caught that ammu standing in front of the building, opposite mine. He spoke with the intercom and I can clearly hear what he was saying.

“Zibaleh?” He asked for a rubbish from person beyond the intercom.

The moment I heard that he was asking for a rubbish, I was saying this to myself “Really? Till that extend?” 

I stood still for a while and trying to confirm what I just heard. It was really happening.

What happened yesterday really shows us what a f***ed up place Egypt is. The rich continue to feed their greediness non-stop, while the poor try to survive just for another night.

To think of the ammu, as far as I know, he is a good man. Even though I can see hardships through his wrinkled forehead, I also can see kindness in him especially when he smiling back at me. Even sometimes I raise up my hand to greet him from afar. Always, he will reply that with his sweet smile.

Before this, I brought back home an extra wrap of rice with fried chicken. Coincidently, that ammu was there, so I told him to take the rice but he refused it nicely after I insisted quite hard, I think.

Maybe, it is a nature of someone who is sincerely working hard for a living, that he would never simply accept someone’s gift. Or maybe he wants to take care of his pride. Or also, and I think this is somewhat a reasonable reason, maybe he does not want to bring back home a food or a gift for one only, considering that there are few members of his family in the house.

He tries to be just and nice to his family, perhaps.