Rana Allam discovers how reluctant middle-class Egyptian men are to use their hands around the home Most Egyptian men are unaware that women are attracted to handymen. "My husband brought the carpenter in to screw a screw in the kitchen cupboard and paid him LE20 for it. I went into a fit but he just couldn't understand why I was making all this fuss," recalls Inas. Her disdain for her husband's ineptitude around the house was not mitigated by the fact that, far from being a sluggish couch potato, Inas' husband puts in long hours, both at his job and, later, at the gym. When I moved into a new apartment recently, I came up against that most rigid of Egyptian middle class ethics, the idea that manual work belongs to the lesser classes. The done thing is to pick up the phone and summon someone else to do the job, however easy it may be. Changing a plug, fixing a door knob or putting up a painting all seem to be too tough a job for middle-to-upper class Egyptian men to handle. "Leave the bread to its baker" -- this bit of folk wisdom is the middle class male's answer to his shirking even that part of house work which patriarchal traditions deem a male preserve. The place I have moved into is an old apartment that needed substantial renovation. So I rolled up my sleeves, pulled on my 'working clothes' and started compiling a long list of mostly minor things that clamoured for my attention. I was adamant that, despite getting the workers to paint the walls and look after other time-consuming jobs, I would still fight my own battles -- if only with the details. When out shopping, however, salesmen -- once they realised that I would be the one affixing the power plugs and door knobs I was busy buying from them -- either sneered at me or took a step back as if figuring me out. As for the plumber repairing the water supply in my bathroom, the poor man did not take well to the realisation that I had fixed the shower and changed the taps myself. He stopped, stared at me in disbelief and, following a long silence, expostulated: "Madame, women don't do these things!". "And do men do them?" I retorted, to his shocked silence. In fact, most Egyptian men -- as experience has taught me -- would rather hire an electrician to change a light bulb than do it themselves. The saying, "Degrade your money; not yourself," underscores the idea that, for our middle classes, DIY (do it yourself) is not so much a pastime as an exercise in humiliation. Discreetly and insidiously the message is passed on that people who fix things themselves are, God forbid, poor. "My mother-in-law once caught me changing the air- conditioner's power plug and raised her eyebrow disapprovingly," a friend recounts. "After that, whenever I refuse to do something strenuous or unladylike, she will remind me of the plug story, as if to suggest that, having already 'degraded' myself once, why bother stopping now?" Manual work need not go this far, yet even hammering a nail is too much for some When asked if they would do odd-jobs themselves, men are usually surprised, to say the least. "Why should I do it myself? If I had to, I would mend things around the house," says Mohamed Badr, a pediatrician in his 30s. But, in fact, Mohamed can hardly remember when he last changed a plug. Another young professional, Tamer El-Sayed, an accountant, explains, "I have enough work to do at the office, I am not going to bear the burden of the household chores as well. I'll bring in the professional and he'll fix it while I watch television." But the landscape of Egyptian social pretensions is not so bleak. When a couple of friends recently got married, they decided to fix their house up themselves. They painted all the walls and doors, mixing the colours themselves and wasting an excessive amount of paint in the process. "It was a lot of fun having paint all over our faces, hands and clothes. My wife, Soha, was standing on top of the ladder, trying to hold the heavy paint brush and do the ceiling while I laughed my heart out," says Ahmed. Soha also enjoyed the experience: "I loved doing my own house with the man I will be sharing it with. Taking all the decisions together was very romantic." Not only did they paint the house, they also fixed the electricity, phone plugs, taps and hung the chandeliers and curtains -- which they sewed themselves. They brought in a few friends and drew pictures on the corridor walls. Now, their house looks fantastic. But the wonders of DIY are wasted on Hassanein Abul-Sid, an electrician who believes that those men who "think they can fix wires on their own usually end up messing the whole electricity system in their houses. In the end, I get paid more for fixing the whole thing." Lately, the household maintenance scene has been invaded by a new breed of handyman -- the multi-tasker. The list of jobs they do ranges from fixing a wire and hanging wall paintings to repairing the washing machine and air-conditioner. He may be useful, but most of the services he provides can be accomplished by anyone with a bit of patience. When I ran into one of these aliens to our hallowed classist tradition I asked him what had inspired him to straddle all strands of the handyman discipline. Said, whose card bears the legend betaa kollo (I do everything), said: "Once you get the hang of it, it's easy. All you have to do, usually, is check the mechanism and you're there." Said will rip you off with a winning smile because he can accomplish any odd-job with panache. Though he may not want to badmouth his customers, it is clear -- reading between the lines -- that he believes the majority of them to be spoilt, rich and lazy. "You know how men can get very busy and not concentrate on household stuff. Sometimes they will call me in to extend a phone wire or screw in a screw on a door knob," he explains. So, whatever happened to our own hands? To some extent, we cannot blame ourselves, given that we have never been taught these things. Do the handymen ever bother to explain to us how to fix a leaking tap or a burnt-out fuse? Of course not. You have to nag if these masters in the art of evasion are to deign to supply you with a comprehensive answer. I had the plumber in, a couple of days ago, fixing the bathroom tap. I was told by his 'boss' that it required complete replacement. Given that it was only dripping, I found this a tad hard to stomach. But I could see that arguing would lead nowhere and so I let them have their way. A little over two hours later, the 'junior' plumber finally announced, in the sombre tones of a surgeon who had just concluded a delicate operation, "OK, it's fixed." Naturally, I had been watching him work so I knew that he had only changed the rubber band. When his boss demanded an extortionate amount, I gave him what I thought was appropriate for the job and, after a short argument, he realised I had seen through him and departed in ignominious defeat. While he had been hard at 'work', I tried to find out from him how I might go about fixing minor plumbing troubles in the future. When I finally managed to get an answer out of him, I told him that he would have made it much easier for the both of us if only he had answered my questions right away. The man, laughingly, answered, "Madame, if people learned how to fix their plumbing, I would be out of business."
