The Expat Diaries: There was nothing the guy at Al-Tamimi mobile store in Cairo’s Bab Al-Louq neighborhood could do for my phone but he told me I may have better luck if I tried their maintenance branch.

“They don’t open until 1 though,” he said.

The time was 11:40 a.m. and I had to work that day. There was no way I’d be able to get there until 8:30 p.m.

Eight hours later, I weaved through Cairo’s busy streets at top speed, dodging buses, taxis, fruit salesmen and the like to try and find this maintenance store.

I barreled back into Al-Tamimi, the man I had spoken to that morning was surrounded by five customers. Luckily, I remembered his name.

“Hey, Mahmoud! Remember me? Where’s that maintenance shop you told me about?”

He stared at me blankly, I waited for my face to register on his.

“Walk out of here, first apartment building on your right, third floor,” he commanded authoritatively as he quickly darted his eyes back to the three phones spread across his palms.

It seemed weird that I would go to such trouble for a year-and-a-half-old phone that was stuttering through its twilight months. If this had happened back in the United States, I would have just called Verizon to see if my plan was being renewed, and if it wasn’t, it's likely they would have just sent me a new one. If they didn’t, I would have just bought a used one off Craigslist.

But I was in Egypt. I needed this phone because smart phones in Cairo are expensive. Buying a new one would be way too much money and having Verizon or a Cragslister ship one overseas wasn’t exactly what I’d call fiscally responsible.

Not to mention the fact that Egypt is the land of cheap and available labor.

In the United States, if the soles of your shoes wear down it’s likely you’ll buy a new pair. A cobbler is hard to come by, and if you find one, they're likely to charge you something in the neighborhood of a brand new pair. The demand just isn’t very high.

But I had just saved a nice pair of dress shoes for about $2 a few days earlier at a place that fixes everything from belt buckles to purses.

I had also just saved a pair of sunglasses that I know would have cost at least $100 to fix for less than a $1.

So there had to be an option for my phone, which had been frozen on Android’s spaceship opening screen for the past 24 hours.

I found the apartment building. Its architecture harkened to an era of high ceilings and wooden elevators with manual doors. Twin stairwells lined with oak handrails spiraled up opposite sides of the building. I ascended haphazardly, frantically scanning handwritten Arabic scrawl in search of something resembling a mobile repair shop. I had no idea what time this place closed.

Upon finding the place and walking in, my jaw dropped. In the United States, sending electronics for repair not only meant spending your life savings but it also meant that you were sending them to some kind of unknown remote location. You know – somewhere like the moon, or North Dakota.

But I was in an apartment building a mere five minute walk from my apartment. A row of chairs lined the wall, a young man sat at the front desk, I explained my issue. He asked me to wait.

Could it be that even something as technical as a mobile phone would be as easy to save as my shoes were?

I took a seat, suddenly feeling as if I were in a hospital. Doors slammed open and closed as technicians stormed up and down the halls like doctors.

My fellow mobile phone owners looked on nervously as they fidgeted with their hands. Every once in a while a technician would appear and ask who had dropped off the Samsung Galaxy 3 or the yellow Nokia, prompting those sitting on either side of me to spring up nervously, as if waiting to hear if a relative had survived an operation.

Indeed many of doors creaked open to unveil operating rooms where technicians gathered around tables that elevated the ailing devices, discussing their next moves and strategies amongst themselves. Behind them were whiteboards which bore incoherent scribble, model numbers and operating systems.

Back in the waiting room, one customer looked up anxiously and asked the young man working at the front desk: “How much longer is it going to be?”

“He should be out with your device any moment now,” he assured.

Within a few minutes, two technicians appeared at the front desk. They announced the customer’s device and he sprang from his seat. The first technician, introduced the other to the customer, explaining that he was a specialist for his device. The customer solemnly shook his hand and thanked him for is work, it seemed he would be on his way soon and could take his phone home with him that night.

And then it was my turn.

I approached the technician, he explained that he could probably fix the phone for around $20.

I was floored.

There was just one problem though. My phone was from abroad, thus making the procedure a complex one. It was going to have to stay the night.

So I bid my fellow waiting room attendees farewell and went home, hoping that my phone would survive its procedure.

As I walked back I found myself trying to figure out if I could get out of work early so that I could check on it during visiting hours.

Living as an expat in the Middle East? Pitch us your story: alexandra (at) stepfeed.com.