Adjusting to Egypt

This vegetable vendor works in the Suuk (market) in Alexandria.

Here I am in Alexandria rowing out to a castle on the peer.

A panorama from our living room window. The greenery in this photo is deceptive. While we are very lucky to have this small park in front of our building, standing in front of this window constitutes braving intense heat from the sun and listening to incessant honking below. My favorite time of week is Friday afternoon because most people are at the afternoon prayer and sermon which means fewer cars outside and more quiet.



This is a photo of our elegant Egyptian style living room.










July 7, 2008

I am currently writing from Cairo, Egypt. For those of you who don't know, I arrived here two weeks ago and plan to stay and study Arabic intensively for the next two months.

I arrived in Cairo on a Tuesday and spent the next week settling in and finding my residence. My first apartment was shared with a couple British students, a German student, and and Dutch student - all great people. We seemed to be raising a large family of baby cockroaches in our kitchen, however, which made cooking a less than pleasant task. Additionally, one of my roommates smoked cigarettes like a chimney and between that and the severe pollution here, I was confident that I would need a new set of lungs by the end of my stay. I decided to move apartments and am now living with a couple Americans, no cockroaches, and only natural air pollution - I am very happy here.

I spent my next week adjusting. I quickly came down with a stomach illness, along with 90% of the students, and was mostly housebound after my classes. I am happy to say that I have recovered and have developed a better and stronger immune system.

On top of my stomach illness, adjusting to the heat has been very challenging. It's so hot that all I want to do when I arrive at my apartment is fall asleep. I had a pretty bizarre sleep schedule for many days, sometimes falling asleep at 7:30pm and waking up to start my day at 4:30am. The heat is supposed to become more intense in the coming months, but I can tell that my body has begun to adjust.

Islam drives the culture here. Our classes and living accomodations are completely segregrated and I learned that it is not appropriate to have a person of the opposite sex visit the apartment even if it is only as friends. The neighbors are always watching and the concept of privacy is basically nonexistent.

An interesting anomaly in Egypt is that although the majority of the population is extremely poor, crime is very very minimal here. Walking around at night is far safer than many places in the states and although locals will often try for an extra baksheesh (tip) from foreigners, most would never harm another person for it. The Islamic influence certainly drives this remarkable behavior.

People are also incredibly friendly here. Egyptians are renowned for their sense of humor and whenever I give a smile, I always receive one back. On more than one occasion I've had a stranger, after only two minutes of chatting, hand me his phone number and tell me where lives in order to help me if I need anything.

My roommates and I recently befriended an Egyptian, whose name is Mohammed, who we met at the stationery store. Our common language is Spanish. This was a total surprise and is very rare here. The trip has become a mishmash of language. I learn Arabic at the school, speak Spanish with Mohammed, speak English with my roommates, and listen to Hebrew music on the side. Wow.

Driving in Cairo is the scariest thing you have ever seen. I thought the driving in Israel was scary, but then I came here... There are no lanes, no street lights and no laws, and every inch of the roads is packed with cars and people (weaving between traffic to cross). The best way I can describe the driving style here is to say that the drivers are analogous to bats, which guide themselves with sonar rather than their eyes. Egyptian drivers don't use lights at night and use their horns as their main form of communication. Cab drivers will honk every 10 seconds just to let others know that they are present. When passing, holding the hand on the horn is the way to let someone know. If you thought that New York had a lot of honking, forget it - there is no comparison.

Now that I've explained the driving in Cairo, I can give an accurate picture of my adventure going downtown to the suuk (market) yesterday. Mohammed was our leader for the trip and he decided that we take a bus there. The buses are packed shoulder to shoulder and the drivers never fully stop to let people on or off, they just slow down. The side doors remain open and the only way to board is to jump on, grab the bar, and HANG ON! I couldn't imagine that all four of us would succeed in doing this but somehow we managed to push our way on (while hanging off the side of the moving bus). It was quite exciting. The bus ride was over an hour and once at the suuk Mohammed helped us haggle for clothing. The Spanish was quite useful because the vendors could not understand our personal conversations.

That brings me up to the present, where I am sitting in the internet cafe down the street from my apartment. The guys here just asked me if I can pay today, since yesterday I could not pay since I only had a 100 Egyptian Pound note (just under $20), which was too large to break. The workers are very trusting and often let me pay the next day. I have two more days of classes and then it is the weekend - on Thursday and Friday.