The Big Yellow "M"

Yes, I’m talking about that M. McDonald’s. The place in which no self-respecting American traveling abroad would be caught dead. We Americans who travel abroad suffer from a sort of McDonald’s complex. We are painfully aware that the rest of the world stereotypes us as provincial, untraveled, uncultured cowboys who only speak one language and only eat fast food.  So, to prove to the world (and ourselves) otherwise, one of the things we do is avoid eating at McDonald’s. Even when it might be in our interest to do so.   

I am one of those Americans who suffers from McDonald’s complex. Not just because eating at McDonald’s would be an indication of close-mindedness, but because of all of the things the fast-food chain has come to symbolize over the years. Especially here in the Middle East. As one of the largest corporations in the world, it is a symbol of American economic and cultural hegemony. Is it any surprise, then, that McDonald’s restaurants have become a favored target of anti-American violence in the Arab world, alongside our embassies?

With that in mind, I try to refrain from eating at McDonald’s while here in Egypt. Or anywhere, for that matter. Not only because of what it symbolizes, but because it is genuinely bad food. I rarely ate at McDonalds when I was living in the US, so why would I pick up the habit now that I’m living abroad?

Well, maybe because…

I’ve lost tract of the amount of times I’ve come down with food poisoning since I started traveling eight years ago… all for the sake of not an ignorant, McDonald’s-eating American!

So far, I have managed to get food poisoning in almost every country I have visited, the latest being Poland. I had always dreamed of seeing Poland ever since studying World War II in high school. So, when presented with the opportunity to teach at the Euro Raks Belly Dance Festival in Poland, I gladly took it. No sooner had I stepped off the plane, however, than I ate something I shouldn’t have and found myself romancing the toilet for days on end.

What happened was that I had a nine-hour layover in Warsaw before heading to the city of Katowice, where the Euro Raks Festival was being held. In all my touristic enthusiasm, I wandered around the city until it was time to catch my connecting flight. Admittedly, I don’t speak a word of Polish, nor did I know anything about the sites I was seeing. But it didn’t really matter. I was just happy to be soaking in the cool, crisp, Polish air, and to be seeing such vivid colors all around me. Especially green! (It’s been a while since I’ve seen that color, living in Egypt.) I was especially intrigued by all the beautiful architecture. And the churches! I’m not religious or anything, but seeing the churches imbued me with a sense of calm that I haven’t felt for a while. It was such a nice feeling that I thought I would intensify it by actually entering one of them. And intense it was. For no identifiable reason, I became awash in tears. I did not know what I was crying about, or why I was crying in the church of St. John the Baptist in Poland, of all places. Especially since I haven’t cried for a long while now. It was the first time I had stepped in a church in years though. That might have had something to do with it. 

Be that as it may, I put myself back together and continued touring around the beautiful city until I felt hungry. Things went downhill from there. There was a big yellow “M” staring right at me.  Beckoning me. Enticing me. If only I knew it at the time. Instead, I chose to eat at a mom-and-pop Polish restaurant, and bravely ordered some pea soup with a side of kielbasa, and some spinach and cheese dumplings. I don’t usually eat pork. Not for religious reasons, but because I don’t like it very much. But hey, what’s a trip to Poland without a little kielbasa? And what’s the point of leaving Cairo without doing all the things you can’t easily do there, like eat pork, drink beer, and walk around half naked? So, the infidel in me went for the pork.

And then, God punished me. He sent me straight to the bowels of hell. Or rather, he sent hell straight to my bowels… in the airplane toilets of my hour-long connecting flight to Katowice, nonetheless. If you’ve never experienced it, let me be the first to tell you that there is nothing worse than having the runs 30,000 feet above sea level. It is bad enough AT sea level, let alone at those altitudes.

As was my luck, the food poisoning got progressively worse during the night and into the next day, on which I was scheduled to teach. I was totally dehydrated, in pain, exhausted, and starving, and started thinking about switching my teaching time slot with someone who had a workshop later that week. It sounded easy enough, but the sponsors informed me that that would have been a logistical nightmare. At that point, I could either cancel the class completely and squander my opportunity to teach in Poland, or show up and teach that class, even if it were the last thing I did. I chose the latter. Being the amazing hosts that they were, Suraiya and her husband Mansour pumped me up with Stoperan (or Stop-a-run, as I like to call it). Apparently, this is a popular anti-diarrhea medicine in Poland. I took as many of those as humanly possible, hoping that would clear up my problem before class. 

No such luck.  In fact, I actually wound up throwing up just an hour before I had to teach. At that point, any other sane person would have probably cancelled their workshop. But not me. I jumped in the shower (again), slapped on some makeup, and hauled my ass to class. Praise be to the Lord who punished me, a Christian, for eating pork!

What happened thereafter was nothing short of a miracle. I successfully taught my high-energy, modern entrance piece to a roomful of beautiful, talented, and remarkably sweet young women.  Having heard that I was sick, they knew to be patient with me. They even brought me a tray full of cookies, and joked about the irony of me leaving Cairo only to get sick in Poland. Between the cookies, their kindness, and their laughter, I was able to make it through the class in spite of the recurring dizzy spells.

Moral of the story. I should have eaten at McDonald’s. There are just sometimes when it pays to be small-minded, provincial, and unabashedly American. When it pays to go with the tried, true and tested. Especially when your alternatives include things like fois gras, kielbasa, wienerschnitzel, mumbar (stuffed intestines), fried bull brains, and fried bull balls. For all its bad points, you rarely get sick from eating a Big Mac. Guilt feelings, yes. Food poisoning, no. 

This experience taught me one more thing. Locating the nearest McDonald’s upon visiting a strange country is just as important as locating the American embassy. In times of crisis, both institutions are lifesavers. I feel so strongly about this that I believe little yellow “M”s should be featured on tourist maps alongside the little museum, church, and hospital icons. :) 

Reaching further back into my travel life, I remember one other time I could have really used a McDonald’s. It was when I was in a hospital in a remote village in Syria five years ago. 

At the tail end of my two-month Arabic-language program in Damascus, I visited my Syrian ex-boyfriend’s family in Idlib. I don’t remember what I ate while I was with them, but it must have been pretty bad. The next thing I knew, I wound up in the local hospital dehydrated and delirious after 24 hours of nonstop diarrhea (I had to contend with hole-in-ground toilets, to make matters worse). The doctor informed me that my only option would be to take this abnormally huge, non-disposable needle in my rear. From the look of panic inscribed on my face, the doctor realized I was not going to take that needle voluntarily. He thus pushed me over on my side and held me down to inject the needle. Only, I resisted. We continued this pushing and shoving match until my ex’s two sisters, who were watching this interaction, took pity on me and dragged me into the bathroom (which also had Turkish toilets). 

Unwilling to risk getting AIDS on account of that needle, the only thing left for me to do was induce vomiting and get the poison out of my system. This was when his sisters offered me their fingers. As in, to shove them down my throat to induce vomiting. As much as I appreciated the gesture, um… no. Wanting to end that ordeal as quickly as possible, I engaged my own index and middle fingers and got on with it, in front of the two women. I don’t know if it was more disgusting or more humiliating.

Here in Egypt, it is quite easy to get food poisoning too. Although it’s the water that is usually the culprit. But since I never drink tap water and almost always cook, I don’t usually get sick the way I used to when I first visited Egypt seven years ago. Plus, I have probably become immune to more than I think. Here, I never utter the word McDonald’s unless I’m referring to it as a landmark, or a place in front of which to meet. 

Okay, okay. That’s not completely true. I admit to feeling a sort of “craving” for a Big Mac every now and then. I think what it really means is that I’m homesick. Not because I eat the stuff back home, but because it’s such a symbol of everything that is American. It’s almost like eating a piece of America itself.  This (plus sobbing whenever you hear Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, or Madonna being played in a taxi), is a sure sign that you’re homesick and need to do something about it.

The best thing about McDonald’s here in Egypt is that they deliver—to your table and your home. So it’s not exactly fast food, as the service is quite slow. But all you have to do is order at the counter, take a seat, and wait for a waiter to bring your meal. Or, dial a special code from your cell phone, and wait for a McDonald’s delivery man to bring you your Happy Meal on a special red McDonald’s motorcycle. The McMotor.

And… I can’t believe I just wrote an entire blog post about McDonald’s. They really should be paying me for this!