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The shisha cafe before transformation.
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They told us not to go there. Too dark. Too smokey. Too dangerous.
And we were the only women in the place.
In those days, the smoke was so thick it could have been baled; shredding mats hung askew on dark, slightly leprous walls, the woven tops of rickety tables unraveled and coils of the shisha (waterpipes) hose curled round their rusty legs like snakes.
But the café was on the main street just a couple of blocks from home, we were well beyond a certain age and not exactly Egyptian looking, so we felt safe.
We edged in. They greeted us like favorite relatives just home from a long trip.
"No, no sit here; it's a better table.
"What will you drink? Lemonade? Sprite zero? Tea?
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"For me, Egypt is like magic. I love Egypt. I love it too much.
"And I love to smoke shisha.
"It is because I love to smoke shisha that I have this cafe.
 Still, it "just happened" that Safwat Gargas acquired the old Straw Mat Cafe. He'd lent a friend some money to buy it but that guy walked away after it failed. Safwat's father told him to make something of it.
His father was a Manial Island institution, having come to the island just off Cairo, some 70 ago when it "still had orchards." But that wasn't the old man's fame; that came from his wise and judicious personality: people went to him for help with problems.
With his father gone, Safwat took over the auto repair business his father started near the landmark Galaxy Move Theatre.
"I worked for my father for many years but always I smoked after work. I traveled a lot too - Germany, Italy even Russia."
For the first couple of years, Safwat didn't do much with the space, just opened the doors for a couple of hours after work, sat with his friends and smoked. But more friends came, the government began to take an interest in the revenue and Safwat was 2 years in the courts before reopening to the public.
By then, he'd bonded with the place. "This is my baby" he says. "Other people have children. I have the [renamed] New Amido."
Change was slow. Bank loans for small businesses are as common in Egypt as ice floes but he reinvested his profits. First the bathrooms - men and women's, then the marble walls.
He and a designer friend paged through design magazines. Up went the slatted ceilings, the smoke removers , the Italian cafe tables, and the trendy lighting.
"This is my baby," he says again. "The people here are my family. I tell them, I don't like liars and I don't like thieves. If you come to me in a straight way, I will give you my eyes." |
"Apple, peach or apricot shisha?
"Where do you live"
"You are beautiful."
"Where are you from?
"What are you doing in Egypt?"
"Do you like it here?"
"Will you marry me?"
(It's worth a shot. Sometimes it happens and it might get them someplace with more opportunity."
Shisha cafés, whether enclosed spaces like this one or dedicated patches of sidewalk, are everywhere in the people's Cairo. Men gather in them to sit, gossip or play backgammon. Some more legitimate restaurants serve shisha and there you can find an occasional women, in hijab no less, enjoying a smoke.
We played endless games of scrabble (while the staff rooted for one or the other of us), smoked more shisha than research required, chatted with the waiters, most of whom were about a third our age. We listened to their troubles-mostly their desire to leave the country-and looked at pictures of wives and babies. If we left something behind, a sweater or a tip too big, they would chase us down the street to return it.
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Two of the waitstaff at the New Amido
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Every second or third night, whenever there was football/soccer game, they'd clear the tables from the center of the room, set-up rows of extra chairs, and turn up the volume on the life-sized television set. Leagues of men would pour in; few ordered anything. They stood or sat quietly, their faces registering the nuances of play. Only when the home team scored did the place blow up.
The fans receded, the floor was swiftly swept and mopped, the tables repositioned and the shisha smokers regained their quiet habitat.
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A wake-up coffee and shisha at the New Amido
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An Americanesque transformation
It's been a couple of years since we first went to the Strawmat Café. Today it is unrecognizable. Now called the New Amido, it's got clean air, marble walls, trendy lighting, wi-fi, an espresso machine, a few cafe tables from Italy and yet still, the shisha.
The clientele hasn't changed, except that now every third table has a computer on it. The men still come in for footbal/soccer, the waitstaff is as friendly and competent as ever, if a bit older.
You don't see this kind of transformation much in Egypt. If it happens, some international franchising operation is involved.
But the New Amido is an act of love.
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