I’m a simple fella.
There's no greater joy for me than buying a bag of freshly baked cookies for 50¢ and eating it as I stroll down the block back to my residence with the pyramids as a backdrop.
It hath however come to pass that I’m now the most popular person in the region among the garbage-dwelling beggar kids. So even though I’ve successfully convinced most of them by now that I’m not a man of means and can't afford to give them my dinner each day they still all shout “Musa! Musa!” and run up to me excited at the prospect of an adult shaking their hand or patting them on the head.
Overall, the local adults are okay. If you compare the degree of annoyance and filth of these little rascals to how they're treated by the populace, the populace lands on the side of Goodness. Still, there are stories… As you can imagine, life aint a bowl of cherries for garbage-dwelling orphan beggar children.
So, even though I can't give them money or even food any more, they multiply as the word spreads that there's a foreigner named Musa who will actually make them laugh by exaggeratingly shaking their hand and making faces. And heck, he hasn't been unknown to give a cookie or help a kid change the Euro coin he has, by middle-manning with a continental tourist.
This would all be good, and even great, were it not for how friggin filthy so many of these little ones are.
Point is, I may have to say goodbye to my ever-less-successful attempts at my baked goods munch n’ stroll.
I entirely ignored Covid and can't think of a single time I made any effort to wash my hands particularly well in an effort to stave off that particular brand of cooties (which I knew from the start that we were all going to get one way or the other, so best to get it over with) but you really don't want to allow your hands anywhere near your face after shaking the hands of one of these kids in a manner that convinces them that you don't notice they haven't been around water in a couple of weeks.
They are adorable though. I mean, not objectively, but subjectively. Every human being has charm, and to keep us from killing them, God granted kids a few extra doses. Now, these kids act out plenty of salesmen charm for the many tourists they beg from, but the delight they get from an exaggerated hand pumping where I pantomime being impressed by their powers is a wonderful thing to experience.
Not as wonderful as freshly baked cookies for 50¢, but it makes up for a lot of it.
😂