Cairo 2

We have two guides here in Cairo --- one for everything practical and one for hang out spots, shall we say. The practical works like this: we needed an apartment so we got in a cab and went to the other side of the Nile to an area called Doqqi where we wanted to live. Rather than getting a landlord (although they do have the equivalent here called a simsar), you ask someone in the street if there is anyone (probably a bawaab, or doorman) who can help you find an apartment. The bawaab will then take you to a few apartments that he knows of and if you choose to take one that he shows you, he makes a profit, if not, ma'a salaama. Problem with this scenario, if you don't speak Arabic, you're screwed. If you don't know how this works, best of luck finding an apartment. Luckily, we have someone who is not only an amazing person, but speaks great Arabic and knows how the city works. We found a very cute apartment in Doqqi. It is on the 8th floor of building with a Nile view from both the sitting area and my bedroom. It's a bit noisy because it is right off the main street, but for its location, it is fairly quiet. It is about two blocks from a grocery store and only a few mintues walk to the metro which we will be taking to school.

Overall, from what I've experienced, Cairo is a hard city. No one is in a rush to get anything done. Things are very slow and people are not fast paced. Sometimes I love that attitude and sometimes it can be unbelievably frustrating. They walk slowly (and through moving traffic --- something I'm getting better at by the day), the machine to make student ID cards at AUC broke and they aren't getting a new one until April, we were told to show up at one place and were then walked to two different buildings and probably four rooms before finding the actual room, etc. People work until they have enough money. It's not like the US where people work and just want more money. Men walk arm and arm (a fad Naamah and I want to bring back to the states). Because there are so many cars and people here, cars a lot of times double-park on the streets, and people leave their cars in neutral so that the person they double-parked in can push the car and get out. There is less of what we would consider structure, but things seem to work out and get done. Everything is relative.

As Naamah said, being here as Americans (especially at the American University) is colonialism at its best. AUC is in the middle of downtown but has huge cement walls surrounding every building and inside of the cement walls are very green, grassy areas, benches and chairs as well as all the classrooms you need to be at to get to class. Guards are constantly surrounding the building and check you every time you go in, but it's a little bit of a joke. We are pretty convinced that the metal detectors don't actually work and they didn't even unzip my bag once when checking it. Embassies are scattered all around the city and look like huge mansions surrounded by pretty crappy looking apartments. It's the remains of colonialists laughing in the face of Egyptians.

About 80% of the women are veiled which is a little weird to me. Sometimes I think if I wore something on my head I would stick out less, but I don't think that's true at all. I think I tell myself that to make myself feel better. You hear the calls to prayer which I really enjoy. Religion is not as apparent in some ways as I would have thought though. You can buy alcohol almost everywhere and everyone smokes. At the same time, I won't walk by myself and I pretty much cover up completely when I go outside. And then there's other small things...like when I learned, don't go outside with wet hair. Showering is mandatory and ritual in Islam after a specific act...so for a woman to go outside with wet hair, well, you know...A lot of men (every so often you see a woman) walk around with this spot of dirt on their forehead. It took me until today to ask what it is and even then, I only asked an American who didn't know. But someone did give me a very interesting guess today, that being, it is from bowing down and putting your head down during prayer. Something I never would have thought of.

The hang-out spots are like this: Egyptian food, downtown and markets. One of the main Egyptian foods is called koshri. It is basically a mixture of pasta, little noodles (I haven't quite figured out what they are yet), lentils, rice, hot sauce and maybe some burnt onions. The key drink is mango juice. Both of these are delicious. In Egyptian restaraunts, they take your order, you pay them and then they bring you your food. I discovered downtown for the first time today. I had this low point last night of me sitting on the couch, not wanting to make friends, falling asleep with a book open on my lap and waiting an hour and a half for bad, overpriced Indian food to be delivered while hating Cairo. Then I saw downtown and realized there so much more to the city than I'd thought and so much more to find. We also went for the first time to a market. It is in some ways like nothing I have ever experienced. My favorite lines from being there are "I'm already married, all I want is your money," and "For you I kill my wife." Sitting down, one of my favorite things included the woman who came by, dropped peanuts on the table, walked away, came back realizing we weren't going to eat them and therefore not give her money, so she took them back.

The weather here relative to, oh, let's just say Michigan, is beautiful. I have been taking a "survival Egyptian Arabic" class which thus far has been helpful but also extremely overwhelming and I'm not quite sure how I'm going to learn all those words and remember the ones from Modern Standard. I have not yet done the Pyramids or any other very touristy things but I do plan on doing them before Monday. I do believe that I got my first illness from Egyptian food today although it is not nearly as bad as it could be. I hope to soon begin to adjust to everything and feel more at home. During my better hours, I do believe that it will eventually come.