Category Archives: Anecdotes

Jul 17 2011
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Anecdotes, Best blog posts, One minute read

Damp Pants

The weather in Cairo can be quite warm, some might even call it hot. During the day the temperatures climb almost as high as those currently prevailing in Mid-America. And when we’re really lucky, there is equally high accompanying humidity. There are some places the heat is not a problem, like the classrooms at AUC and Alpha market. Everywhere else, however, it must be dealt with.

My apartment has three air conditioners (central air conditioning does not exist here/I have not seen it so it might exist), but they remain off 90 percent of the time. Our living room is particularly unpleasant, since its physical location is such that getting a breeze in there will be possible when little flying pigs tumble in through the window at the same time. The coffin-like air moves only begrudgingly and  only when human folk stir it directly. Regardless of the time of day and exact location, the apartment is always a little bit warm. And since I spend about 90 percent of the time I’m in the apartment sitting down, either doing homework, clipping my fingernails/toenails, or brushing my hair, I often suffer from what I call “damp pants.”

Damp pants is that special feeling you get when, after sitting for a while and then rising, you realize that a steady and even output of sweat from the back of the legs/thighs and the derrier was absorbed into the fabric of your clothing. Usually after walking for a few minutes, the clothes naturally disengage themselves from clinging to the body, but manual assistance may be needed. The severity of the situation depends on the material in direct contact with ones’ clothes. Our choices of sitting situations is particularly dismal: we can choose from warm blanket, to cozy couch, to fake leather chair, or to gross carpet.

Day after day and night after night, all of us suffer from damp pant syndrome, its only remedy wicker chairs and/or standing desks. Though it is not particularly harmful, I would hesitate to damp pants a pleasant situation. I think because of all the alien movies I’ve watched (Monsters Inc.), I associate dampness with filth, thus on some level I am continually disgusted with myself at the level of filth I bathe in every day. This does not, however, urge me on to frequent rounds of laundry.

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Jul 13 2011
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Anecdotes, Two minute read

Goodbye! Welcome!

As I was skype-chatting with my sister today (not Frank..the other one), talking about mundane things like my recent grocery shopping trip, I mentioned that I had a random “I love Egypt moment” when I was once again surprised by the friendliness of the employees at each place I stopped at, most of them telling me “Welcome” as I exited their places of commerce. The one exception was the nut store I went to, where the guy was only postal-worker friendly (that’s a nod to the comedy of Rick Steves, for all you fans out there).

Then not-Frank said something strange: “They said welcome as you were leaving?”  I paused to think. Why was this weird? How has my concept of normality changed in the miles between Cairo and the United States of America? I determined that the usual context for welcoming someone in America is upon entering a place of commerce or residence, the word signalling the beginning of a relationship that will last either as long as it takes to get ice cream or for socially unaware guests to leave. Regardless of the length, the welcome firmly belongs at the relationship’s initiation.

In Egypt, however, welcoming people who look foreign is an activity that knows no beginning nor end; some might say it is a way of life. Anytime is appropriate to welcome a foreigner, especially if they are simply passing on the street minding their own business, looking straight ahead, or appearing conscious. Indeed, it is common national knowledge that nothing says hospitality like one hundred weekly repetitions of “Welcome to Egypt” or simply “Welcome,” or even the rare “Welcome in Egypt,” “Welcome on Egypt,” or “Welcome Egypt” (anyone who has studied a foreign language knows that propositions are hard–no blame or shame being cast here). I’m convinced that even if the educational system were to fail them in every other way, each Egyptian child would leave primary school knowing how to make paper airplanes and say “Welcome (X) Egypt.”

Sometimes it can get annoying. Can’t they tell from my appearance that I’ve already been in the country for a whole 6 weeks and am almost completely Egyptian? What about my wrinkled linen pants and dress shirt, also wrinkled, doesn’t give that impression? On the other hand, the welcoming is just another reminder of the warmth of Egyptian society it is famous  for. People really are friendly–even let-you-borrow-money-friendly (most of the time). So in answer to not-Frank’s question: should there be any time whatsoever in which a person is not welcome? I don’t want to live in a world where that is true.

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Jul 12 2011
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Anecdotes, Best blog posts, The Cairo Metro, Two minute read

Concealed sandwiches prohibited

Main cause of Revolution failure: laxness with sandwich-carriers

The Tahrir sit-in continues as do my experiences with tafteesh, which are especially lovely in the morning. After I wake

up, it usually takes me about an hour to feel like I’m not underwater and appreciate that the things happening around me are, in fact, real. Since I woke up a mere 10 minutes before leaving for school this morning, I had the distinct feeling of being in an aquarium while walking out into the haze of the humid Cairo day. The sensation was intensified by the fact that the metro was unusually moist, the air within the women’s car as warm and embracing as kisses from grandma, though much less pleasant (love you, grandma).

Before surfacing in Tahrir square, I and the other CASA students I had swum into on the way to the metro made our way through the ladies-only tafteesh, conducted by a female trainee no older than fifteen who doubtless has a crush on Robert Redford or whoever the kids like nowadays. There are anywhere from one to two steps in the tafteesh process: 1) exhibit ID 2) submit bag to be searched. The steps occur sometimes in this order, sometimes without the bag search, and sometimes with additional mandatory small talk. The bag search process can be a hassle especially when the girl doing the searching has no idea what a weapon looks like but knows what people searching for weapons looks like, carefully examining everything with equal care, pens, pencils, pocket sized notebooks, ribbon wands, etc. It is also a hassle when one has an American-style, million pocket adventure backpack, each pocket of which must be searched.

One of the girls I was with had such a backpack, which was large and full of things a student uses: books, pencils, and sandwich in a sandwich box. Out of everything that could have aroused suspicion, Ms. Tafteesh was most captivated by the encased sandwich, which looked as American as an apple pie playing baseball, complete with wheat, not white bread, in the sliced loaf style that we so adore. In the amount of time tafteesh girl took to examine the sandwich, I could have clubbed her with my water bottle, grabbed the sandwich, run up the stairs, and been apprehended instantly by other security personnel, who I would have attacked by smearing the contents of the sandwich on their faces. All this to say I think her focus could have been better spent elsewhere.

I have not been able to stop thinking about the girl and the sandwich all day. Though I realize the shape must have been slightly strange for her, I wonder what kind of weapon she thought it could be. Did it signal the presence of a spy? Could it contain some sort of bomb or knife? Did it remind her of a family member? Could it be planted somewhere and cause a strange sensation for someone when stepping on it barefoot? Could it be planted somewhere and explode?

Maybe I’ll never know what was going through Ms. Tafteesh’s mind as she pondered the sandwich. But I did think of something strange later on: I have never actually seen said student eat her sandwich. I have, on the other hand, seen her lurking around campus and hiding her sandwiches under desks and in trash cans. Maybe that girl at the tafteesh station was onto something.

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Jul 11 2011
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Anecdotes, Best blog posts, Humorous, One minute read

There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother

It is a mosquito.

An entire day passes in my apartment and I see no Cairo wildlife, i.e. insects of various sorts, dogs, cats,

This is the enemy

weasels, or small badgers, but as soon as the hour approaches when I consider beginning the long nap I take at night, my old enemy confronts me once again. Indeed, as soon as the very thought ekes its way through the fabric of my mind, I hear the familiar high pitched whine that signals the presence of a creature desiring to partake of my flesh.

Nothing could be more dangerous than this foe. Left unattended, I am faced with the frightening reality of awaking in the morning to as many as five or six bites upon my feet, face, and claws. That is a reality I do not wish to experience.

And yet, night after night, the dastardly devil proves nearly impossible to kill. I have only successfully killed one mosquito in my time here. In that case, the little lady had feasted too heartily on the blood of yours truly. Slowed down by the weight, she could not avoid my slowly approaching, slightly moist palm which after the fact was graced with a bright smear of body fluid complemented by mosquito appendages. Of course I ingested it, making my revenge complete.

The war continues, however, another thirsty female eagerly filling the last one’s place. How does it hover so slowly and closely to my ear and spring away with the precision of a gazelle when I go to slap it? What mad science is this that the mosquito is perfectly adapted to inflict both physical and mental pain in its victims? Why do I leave my windows open and breed mosquitoes under my bed?

The only solution is continual wakefulness until every mosquito is gone. A disguise must be sequestered. I have work to do.

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Jul 08 2011
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Anecdotes, Three minute read

Have you seen a tall building in Cairo?

Walking in Cairo

I do not carry a purse, so whenever I go somewhere (i.e. a cafe),  with the plan to sit for a while, I immediately empty  my pockets and place the contents on the table to make sure nothing falls out and is lost forever. This system of keeping things in sight and mind had not backfired until yesterday, when I went somewhere new, a rooftop bar in Zamalek, and met a friend of a friend of a friend and enjoyed the company and the view. An hour later while reclining at home, my roommate got a phone call from me, and by from me I mean from my phone which was now in the possession of the friend 3 times removed since I had kept it out of mind though in sight. In other words, I left it on the table.

Obviously I was bummed that I would have to hunt down the phone, but I considered myself lucky since this friend worked close to where I live so I wouldn’t have to trek over to her neck of the woods in Maadi, an hour away by cab. She emailed me the name of the building, the street on which it was located, and the floor that she was on. It was a tall building–over 15 floors—and in an area I thought I was familiar with so I figured it would be easy to find. Once I got into the cab, however, it turned out that “Companies Building” on Shooting Club street (a long street) just ahead of the Department of Agriculture (in which direction?) before the end of the street (which end/how long before the end?) was not, in fact, a real address.

To make matters worse, prior to boarding the taxi I thought it would be a good idea to break my 20 pound note by spending most of it on hazelnuts. Thus, I wasted 15 of my only 24 pounds on hazelnuts so I only had 9 pounds on me when entering the taxi and was nervous the entire time that I would have disembark far from my destination due to lack of funds. As I sweated in the taxi cab and the driver asked me about my marital status, I stared like a hawk at the meter until it proved necessary to call my friend from his cellphone to get better directions. In her noble attempts at clarification, she told me that there was a gate, a big green sign that said “Companies Building” and that the building was brown-ish. Most of the right side of the street was gated and shaded by big trees which might cover up and/or camouflage a green sign, and everything in Cairo is brown-ish from the daily bastings of dust and pollution.

Cut to me getting out of the cab right as the meter turns to 9 pounds in front of a building the driver insists is correct, since it is tall and has a big green sign that says “Arab Development Bank,” which is not as close as it could be to “Companies Building.” I know he’s not necessarily tracking with what I’m looking for, but I get out anyways since I figure I could just walk until I find it.

Cut to me 30 minutes later, the saliva in my throat turned to pollution-mud, my face a mask of sweat, grease, and dust, and my heart heavy with despair as I trek back along the other side of a busy street under the merciless sun looking for “Companies Building.” Philosophical thoughts fill my brain: What if I don’t find the building and have to walk home without my cellphone? What if I die of heat/pollution stroke on the spot? What if my teeth start falling out because of stress?

I finally spot a sign that says, not “Companies Building” but something about USAID, the organization my friend works for, and enter into a gated compound down a dusty road/parking lost. I have found the promised land. The building is just as non-descript as was described but to me it looked like heaven. I climb a short flight of stairs, greet the men at the front desk and then head to the fifteenth floor. There is a man inside the elevator that pushes the buttons for me and asks what extent I am doing well…”good? very good? very very very good?” I answer “so-so.” and when I return the question he says he’s at 100%. Show off.

Two minutes later I’m sitting in the office of my friend with her colleagues shooting the breeze and drinking Nescafe in air conditioning. My soul is healed. Finally, after being in transit to this place for an hour and a half, I am able to leave in possession of my cell phone and renewed hope for society.

After exiting the building, I try to find a cab to take home. To my surprise, no cab driver wants to take me….I put two and two together and realize home must be closer than I thought. It was a mere twenty minute walk away. Things may take longer to get done here in Cairo, but they take especially long when you have no idea what you’re doing.

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