How to Bribe a Zookeeper

It started out innocuously enough. We had gotten back from Siwa, we had gone to our advising meetings, and we had a day to kill before on-campus orientation started. What to do?

Idea. Our friend Patrick, who studied here last semester, has one of those Facebook pictures that makes you do a double-take.

For those of you not in or just out of college, Facebook is a "social networking tool" that basically exists for the purposes of stalking people you don't know, uploading unflattering pictures of your friends, or broadcasting your relationship status to the hordes. You have a profile that describes your interests, activities, etc. And there's a picture that goes along with it.

Patrick's picture is him holding a lion.

Not a large cat. Not Simba. Not a baby, bottle-feeding abandoned lion cub. A damn lion. And Patrick's happy about it.

Seeing as it's probably every little girl's fantasy to have a pet tiger or such a la Jasmine (Sarah was offered an ocelot if she didn't come to Egypt), we knew where we had to go with our free day: The Giza Zoo.

We pulled a group together ("Who wants to go hold lions? Yes, we're really serious."), and with only a faint suggestion of where the zoo was, set off for the Metro. We figured we'd wing it, and somehow the streak of luck we picked up crossing a street in Cairo continued, and we made it.

A word on the Cairo metro: For a pound, you can go anywhere on any of the lines. Forget zones, peak hours, line colors...it's all one pound. Of course, getting that ticket means shoving your way up to a window, slapping down your money and grabbing the first yellow ticket you see. Lines don't really seem to exist here. All of us well-trained little Americans queue up for things like a ticket counter, while the Egyptians just step right in front of you. It can get nasty. Sarah almost got body checked into a bathroom stall in a grocery store restroom. It's frustrating at first, but you just have to go with it. Push back. Throw some 'bows.

So Hammad finds out which stop the zoo is (one of the thousand times I've been grateful he speaks Arabic), and the five of us make our way to the front gates. It's common here for there to be different standards for Egyptians/Arabs and foreigners, like the "back entrance" to the Pyramids. The Egyptian Museum is another example: 1 LE entrance fee for Arabs, 50 LE entrance fee for non-Arabs (this has led many of my fellow expats to try to pass off as Arab, to varying degrees of success). The Giza Zoo may or may not have been an exception to this pervasive pattern, but to make sure, Hammad had us stay out of sight while he bought five tickets. The cost? 2 US Cents. For five of us.

We knew that Patrick and his friends had bribed--er, tipped--the zookeepers into letting them hold a lion. How we were going to do it, we had no idea. Walk up to the lions' cages with a 20LE note and wave it in the air? Or act all suave like we knew what we were doing, and give the magic signal? Like most things we've done so far, we were winging it.

It took me about two seconds to notice that this place was not a tourist attraction; it was a run-down zoo frequented almost solely by Egyptian families. We stuck out like a sore thumb. A sore thumb dressed in baseball hats and giant backpacks with money to spend. I wasn't even through the turnstile before a zoo security guard was on us: "You want to hold baby Simba?" Well, there went subtlety.

The guard practically sprinted through the crowds, with us racing to tag behind. We had been in the zoo less than one minute, and we were already on our way to hold a lion. But first, a pit stop: the fox house. We snuck in a gate past a throng of local families, and it was there that a bored zookeeper thrust a very disinterested looking baby fox into our hands, asking us to hold it tight with both hands so that it wouldn't get away. I don't think it ever even moved.

At the end, I knew we needed to tip the zookeeper, but how much? I looked through my cash and found a 50 piaster note, about twenty five times the price of a single admission. Maybe that would be enough? I handed it to him and walked away, but the security guard took it from him, and gave it back to me with a frown.

Oh, okay, so no baksheesh for the piddly keepers, just for him. Got it. But no. "That is small money," the uniformed officer said. "He needs more than that." So we got together and all threw in a few pounds. For about a US dollar total, we had just held a fox.

Before I could even pass around the Purel we were off again, still struggling to keep up with our business-minded guide. As we plowed through the zoo, all eyes were on us. We quickly began to feel uncomfortable, as it was staggeringly obvious that the Americans were paying for a behind the scenes tour that was not even offered to Arabs, for whatever price. As we approached the gate leading to the lion cages, we encountered a throng of Egyptian families, all trying to secure backstage access to the animals. The security guard opened the gate a crack, and we all snuck in. People outside began to shout. While I couldn't understand what they were saying, Hammad translated: "You're letting them in just because they're tourists and they're paying you!" It's how the system works here, but that doesn't mean I felt any better about it.

We entered a room lined in concrete, and not much else. There were three separate cages, all of which ostensibly led to an outdoor enclosure. A large male lion paced in the cage to the far left. The others looked empty. Before we realized it (that is, before we developed a healthy enough sense of fear to get out of there), the zookeeper had pulled out a lion from the shadows of the middle cage and was holding it. "Who wants a picture?"

And as soon as I saw the lion, I almost didn't want one.

Zoos, on principle, are not the best place for a wild animal. They're not meant to be caged; it does odd things to them. Tigers stop eating, polar bears pace. I understand why conservatories exist for endangered animals, and I think zoos serve a purpose. Many of them do a very, very good job; I had the pleasure of volunteering at the Oregon Zoo for a summer a long time ago, and they do a good job with their animals. I worked at a family-owned pet store for years on and off, and we took good care of our critters. I love animals, of any type, and to see one so obviously unhappy broke my heart.

The lion was skinny, lethargic and tired. It was too small for its age. It looked drugged. We have five pictures with it, and in each picture only we change. The glazed eyes of what should be a magnificent big cat stay focused on the floor. I posed with it, per the direction of the zookeeper. As Hammad took my picture, the keeper had to tell me to smile. I'm posting it here, but it's not a picture I'll be putting up on Facebook anytime soon.

We paid that keeper over 10 LE, and as crazy as it sounds, I almost gave more. Maybe they would buy him more food.

Ushered out of the lion house, we were greeted by the same mass of angry fathers and children, asking why we could see the lions when they had been waiting all day. We all started to feel dirty.

Reptile house was next, where we held a baby alligator and an adolescent albino burmese python. I'm not well versed in alligator health, but I've had the pleasure (seriously, I love snakes, and I miss mine) of knowing some beautiful pythons in my day. This one needed a few more rabbits in its belly. Again, more baksheesh. After this, we were all mentally done; I think I can speak for the group and say that we didn't want to bribe any more keepers to hold any more sorry looking animals, and we were tired of being the spectacle of the zoo. We asked to bow out.

But just one more, the guard said, already unlocking the next gate, already pushing us past the lines of waiting Egyptian families. It was time to pet the seals. I will say that the seals looked the healthiest of all the critters we encountered that day, be they in our arms or behind a fence. But now we were the spectacle, as the keepers tried to pull us into the enclosure in front of dozens of families. Jacob and Hammad declined, growing exceedingly uncomfortable with the situation, but Hammad's friend Nathan couldn't escape.

The seal climbed on Sarah, leaving a trail of marine mammal goodness on her pants for the rest of the day. Mine barked at me. We all felt extremely out of place, and out of line.

Children pointed. Mothers whispered. Fathers grumbled.

Suffice to say, after being the new exhibit at the Giza Zoo, the Americans were done. The guard tried to get us to go hold baby monkeys, but we firmly declined. Still shocked from the lion escapade, I didn't know if I could take to cradling neglected monkeys. It was time to go. The man asked for 50LE from each of us for his highly illegal services; we gave him 60 LE total and he smiled and told us to have a nice day. We both knew that he could lose his job for our unauthorized tour. He would take whatever we gave him.

After that we made a concerted effort to explore the rest of the Giza Zoo as common, everyday zoo-goers, but to no avail. Mainly because we weren't common, everyday zoo-goers. We were American tourists who had just bribed our way through a whirlwind tour of depressed animals.

Everywhere we went thereafter, we were followed by swarms of children asking us for everything imaginable (gum, Purel, money, shoes, our names), and even though we tried to ignore them, it was frustrating to be pestered wherever we went. Hammad mused that this is how the celebrities in the US must feel, being peppered by the paparazzi when they try to do normal, everyday activities. We decided to leave.

We took a cab back to our dorms. I think we were too tired to mess with the Metro anymore. Everyone asked how our lion taming adventures had gone, and we told them, with the caveat that it would make you want to cry. That didn't seem to deter most people, and to be honest I don't know if it would have stopped me, either. It's one of those things that you have to see to feel.

But I don't think I want a Raja anymore.

In closing, a picture of us all on top of the fortress in Siwa. Because, well, it cheers me up.


NB: I guess I could have done a more superficial account of our trip to the zoo, but what good is a blog if it's not honest? I'm not trying to come across as an elitist animal rights activist or humanitarian... just trying to accurately express how this event made me feel. Take it for what you will, and I'll try to be less depressing next time. :)