Our cab driver has a degree.

Have we mentioned our favorite cab driver before? His name is Mohamed and he’s awesome. Here are a few other fun facts about Mohamed;

* He has a college education in Religious Studies (rough translation) from a university in Egypt.
* He’s from Egypt.
* He primarily drives teachers from our school and makes so much money during the school year that he takes the summers off.
* During the school year he’s available 24/7, with the exception of Mosque.
* He taught himself English, and speaks it somewhat fluently.

And a short story;

Yesterday we were coming home from the vet and Mohamed stops outside of our apartment. Before we can pay him and get out, a police car with two officers stops next to us and they get out and start speaking with Mohamed. (It should be worth pointing out that all Arabic sounds angry, even if the topic being chatted about is fluffy bunnies or how much you love your mother). They ask for Mohamed’s civil ID and then they ask for ours. At this point, we’re getting a little freaked out because we have no idea what’s going on and they look like they’re taking our names down. They eventually give us our civil ID’s back and Mohamed, who has been speaking with the first officer, asks us “how much you want to give me?” in a way that makes us feel like our answer could very well determine whether or not he gets deported. We tell him “5KD” and he starts laughing along with the police officer. The officer gets back into the car, drives off and Mohamed comes back into the taxi and smiles. He tells us that the police officers wanted to make sure he wasn’t ripping us off and that everything was OK. What ended up actually happening was us being scared out of our wits.