The first word Wikipedia uses to describe baksheesh is “charity.” Ha! Another site translated the word as “tips,” or “gratuity.” But really the author Leo Deuel was right on when he described it as “lavish remuneration and bribes, rudely demanded but ever so graciously accepted by the natives in return for little or no services rendered."
Let me give you two examples, the first of which highlights the tipping portion and the second the rudely demanded bribe:
1. After visiting the temples of Luxor our tour guide suggested an appreciation of 5 Egyptian pounds per couple (~$.90) for the driver who had driven us there from the cruise ship, waiting for us and drove us back. Though we did not buy the drivers overpriced water (marked up to 8 times the market price), we gladly gave him baksheesh for his services.
2. In a country where a good hourly wage for a college educated individual is $6/hour, our cab driver charged us $35 for 3 hours of service, a rate which we accepted because he waited for us while we ate dinner and because someone else had paid baksheesh to his friend to get us this nice car. Upon arrival at the airport we paid the driver his $35 and added on an overly generous $5 tip (thanks for ripping us off!) at which point the driver yelled at us and demanded more baksheesh. His limited English paired with our non-existent Arabic led to the involvement of 2 security guards. If you know Jen at all you know that she is not one to mess with when it comes to contracts and payments, however informal they may be. Needless to say, the driver got no more baksheesh.
Paul and I tried to pay only the “tipping” kind of baksheesh – though the corruption got the best of us on several occasions where we were tricked into paying a hugely inflated tourist price. The tourist cab is 70 Egyptian pounds, the local is only 15lb. the "Official" government cap on the ride is 30lb, but everyone just laughs at that. The guide books say you'll be lucky to bargain it down to 40lb.
You are expected to bargain EVERYTHING which gets really tiring as in American culture a low bid is an insult. For example, a handmade piece of art would cost $30 in the U.S., the guy is asking $50 but he is hoping to make $5 or $10. Do you offer $10? In the U.S. that would be an insult, but if you offer fair value of $30 he will sell it to you for $40 and be up $30 on his expected revenues. In other words, to be safe by American standards and not risk insulting the guy, you pay an extra $30 on the value of the product. “Oh, but my friend, you have baksheesh for me too, no?” And he wants baksheesh for the heck of it.
Another funny aspect about the baksheesh was that reputation means so much in Muslim cultures and you try to avoid “losing face” at any cost. This means that you don’t want to be the taxi driver who demands more baksheesh only to be rejected in front of other Muslims; you’d much prefer to be the bus driver who gets baksheesh from the tourists without asking for it. The American way of loud confrontation is very insulting here, so on two occasions when someone was demanding excessive baksheesh and we had to just walk away. In the U.S. if a taxi driver told you $20 for a five dollar ride, and you paid $10 and walked away, he might call the police and say you owe him $10 more…but in Egypt they just let us walk away. That is when we really knew that they knew they had already gotten more than they should have.
We have many examples of men who tried to show us some site within a temple, walked with us to the entrance of a tomb, carried our bags, or made us laugh – all in hopes of getting baksheesh. Jen waited a good 5 minutes for the entrance of a temple to clear so she could get a good picture. As soon as it cleared an Egyptian in traditional dress (who did look really cool) walked into the photo and posed – hoping she’d pay him baksheesh. “Get out of my photo! I’m not paying you baksheesh for ruining this shot!”
Last example: Paul and Jen are trying to buy Egyptian outfits for the Egyptian night on the cruise. They have 20 minutes and know what they want, but there are 15 stands all selling similar things, all trying to get the most money from us for their $2 Chinese made garment. So as we approach the first stand a man comes up to us and asks us what we are looking for. We point out a few things that we do and do not like and he says “come with me.” He takes us to a second stand, pays the owner a 5lb baksheesh and we browse the store. We’re not biting, so he takes us to another store where he thinks the owner has what we want. He pays another 5lb baksheesh to the owner and we browse…bingo! Jen finds what she wants and the guy buys it at a low price, getting baksheesh from the owner for bringing in business. Once all of the pieces are together – Jen’s dress, Paul’s shirt and Jen’s scarf – a price is negotiated between the middleman and us. Of course one of his selling points is that he has to now pay baksheesh to everyone else for showing us around. We pay him for the outfits, plus 5lb baksheesh for helping us, he pays 5lb baksheesh to each store owner and that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the market works in Egypt.
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