Category Archives: Two minute read

Jun 12 2011
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Anecdotes, Egypt, Two minute read

You didn’t bring your prairie dress?

I had the pleasure of attending a “Hafla Galabiya” today, or rather, a Galabiya Party. In said party, everyone was supposed to bring either an American or Egyptian dish and wear traditional Egyptian clothing.  Unfortunately, only about 5 people wore galabiyas, since they’re actually quite funny to wear for hip young people like ourselves; it would be the equivalent of wearing my prairie dress I suppose.

The party was a success in the food department, however. When we finally arrived about an hour late, we found quite a spread on the buffet table and, I, ravenous with hunger and hobbled by indecision, spent the next 10 minutes going crazy over what foods and desserts to choose. Eventually, I consumed sustenance and began to enjoy myself.  Though some talented party-attendees sang, we did not dance together like the heathen kings of old. Thus I suggested we have a party for traditional American and Egyptian dance in the future. I hope it comes to pass since this means square dancing and contra dancing! Ann Cowan would be so proud….

But I would like to talk about our shower. You know you’re showering in our apartment in Egypt when:

1. You turn on the water in the shower and find there is none.

2. The water spurts out sporadically much like an asthmatic whale might expel water.

3. The water returns after an abscence of a few hours but it is apparently drawn directly from the Nile and thus brown in color.

4. The water is either scalding hot or semi-cold.

5. No matter how hard you try, and despite the shower curtain, the bathroom floor and bathmat is soaked after even the shortest of showers.

6. The shower works and you find it brown because of the filth on your feet.

Luckily I only go through this experience a few times a week….#silverlining

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Jun 10 2011
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Anecdotes, Egypt, Two minute read

Quit playing games with my heart

our bowab looks kind of like this but sans hat

Before anything else: the electronic music festival was a blast. We danced, we sweated, one of the DJ’s wore a gigantic mythical bird helmet, it was free, there were no injuries that I know of (though I did hit someone while I was dancing), and no one got an accidental boyfriend. All in all, a great success. I even got to use some of my sweet hip hop moves.

Onto more pressing matters. We’ve been having issues with our landlady regarding ‘irsh or dinero or money.  We first met our landlady and her daughter about a week ago, shortly after we moved in. The landlady’s daughter, a student, was extremely nice and spoke excellent English. The landlady herself, on the other hand, a stout woman of about fifty or sixty, was a little brisk and wore sunglasses the entire time she was in our apartment. She didn’t speak very much English and what little she did know she shouted at us (VEDY GOOD).

When transactions are being conducted in translation or in Arabic, there is always a chance that something has gone awry. Right before they left, the landlady asked us for 100 pounds to give to the bowab and to pay for some other expenses in the building. The bowab is the man who “guards” the door and runs errands for the tenants and stuff like that. They’re a part of Egyptian culture, usually living a very sparse life on little money, and subsisting oftentimes on bread, eggs, and pickles. It’s important to have a good relationship with the bowab because they’re the ones who can either make your life miserable or be a great person to practice Arabic with.

Long story short, the money never reached the bowab. Furthermore, it wasn’t clear what we had actually paid for. Over the course of several telephone calls with both the landlady and her daughter, it was said the money was for a) the bowab and utilities for the building, b) our utilities and the building’s utilities c) the bowab and our utilities d) just the building’s utilities. What’s going on here? What are these games?

So….I called her daughter today and we’re going to set up a time to meet together, all five of us plus an Egyptian guy associated with the program (I told her that there would be a man in our apartment. Her mother conceded after a short conference.) On the bright side, I am now completely knowledgeable about the concept of paying for utilities. The daughter told me at least five times with different examples: “When you take a shower, you use water and you need to pay for that. When you clean the floor, you use water that and in Egypt we have to pay for these things” Ohhhhhh……I thought it was sent directly from heaven in a golden chariot. I guess I need to pay for your mother’s Krispy Kreme habit too with the money she’s squeezing out of us.

Hopefully this will turn out okay in the end and we’ll all be able to be facebook friends. We shall see…..

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Jun 09 2011
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Egypt, Stories, Two minute read

The backpackers and the hag

We are in weekend now! The Egyptian weekend (and the weekend in other parts of the Islamic world) is on Friday and Saturday since church on Sunday isn’t so popular. Tonight I’m going to an electronic music festival, so no doubt there will be a post about that: I imagine glow in the dark hijabs.

When I was walking back to my apartment today after class and our “cultural exchange”, I  witnessed an interesting scene upon entering my street from the main square.

As soon as you turn left from Medan Messaha (or Messaha Square in English) there is a little kiosk and a flower shop, or rather, a flower kiosk. This kiosk by all accounts appears to be open 24 hours, and with good reason since many love emergencies happen in the wee hours of the morning or the late hours of the night. As I was passing by the flower shop, I saw three backpackers, probably European. They all had a very “natural” look and were laden with ridiculously huge backpacks, making them even more conspicuous than their mere colonizer-ish appearance. They were talking to a woman seated on a stool resting against the wall of the flower kiosk, and I swear this woman popped right out of a fairy tale. I know that she must be a lovely lady with a beautiful family and precious children, but she had the exact appearance of the hag that tricks Snow White into eating the poisoned apple, except for she was about three times as heavy and was wearing an abaya not a cloak. I wished to join their party just as an observer of the strange scene taking place: three clueless foreigners taking up with the ilk of the flower shop folk, but I walked on. I have a feeling the backpackers had left a trail of breadcrumbs or something of the sort. Probably as soon as I left, she fed them poisoned hibiscus flower tea and then stole their kidneys. Or took them to her house and fed them to be nice with the added benefit of fattening them up.

As I passed, I felt somewhat superior since, having lived here all of less than two weeks, I am obviously much better attuned to life here and almost fluent in the language and knowledgeable of every Egyptian custom. My confidence was brought down to size quickly, however, when on the way up the stairs to my apartment I almost went insane when a cat scratching its way down the stairwell came close to clawing my legs as it rushed past me. I think my heart exploded from the fright as well as the abundance of caffeine I’ve consumed today. I’m taking the cat as a sign from God that I shouldn’t drink so much caffeine.

If I’m still alive after the electronic music festival tonight I will write about it.

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Jun 08 2011
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Egypt, Two minute read

Transportation Nation!

Since my post yesterday on crossing the street was such a hoot, I decided to do another quick postie-wostie on how I get to school everyday. Just imagine if instead I were writing about how I got to school everyday at  Boston University and you’ll see how banal this is. And yet I continue.

Roomies and I take the Metro to school…it’s about a ten minute walk from our apartment and in the trek, we walk up a street in which 90 percent of our fellow pedestrians are going the other direction, so if feels a bit like we are the proverbial salmon heading up the proverbial stream. We go down the stairs into the metro (Doqqi stop), which is by all accounts incredibly clean and efficient and big and well decorated. After purchasing a ticket, we head through the (hopefully correct) turnstiles and down the stairs. I love the tiling on the side of the walls down in the metro…the designs are big rounded shapes in pastel colors and so the place feels vaguely like a videogame, a nursery, or a knick knack shop.

Here’s where it differs slightly from Amreeka: if I’m with my g-friends, then we seek out the place to stand which will grant us entry to the women’s only car. There’s a sign above the platform that says “Women” and it has a picture of someone wearing a dress, so we go there, obviously. The word for women in Arabic (one of them) is Seyidat, and every time we enter I think to myself, chuckling: “Where’s my seyidat at?” After only a short wait (so efficient! 80 times better than Boston) we push our way onto the car and enter an atmosphere not unlike a sauna. Everyone else is sweating as well, so the smell is particularly lovely and only enhanced by the additional vapor of various perfumes.

We get off 2 stops later right at Tahrir Square. There are about 20 possible ways to exit the metro, but only one of them is the appropriate one for the university. So far we’ve found it one time, and that was yesterday. We might end up in Sudan tomorrow if we’re not careful.

I look forward one day to writing something of meaning, about Egyptian politics, society, religion, culture, etc. Until that day comes, you’ll have to put up with my ramblings: I bought some nuts today—1.5 pounds for about 4 bucks. Electronic music festival tomorrow. I’m speaking only Arabic with fellow fellows and it’s  little strange and a little hard. At least I have my blog.

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Jun 07 2011
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Anecdotes, Modern Life, Two minute read

This is how we cross the street

Crosswalks exist in Cairo. I have seen the lines painted on the ground in crosswalk shape and  a sign indicating that the area was appropriated for pedestrians to cross the street. The electric signs are a bit ominous, however, since the green figure moving across the triangle looks like he is sprinting frantically.

No one uses these crosswalks. Most of the time they don’t exist, especially at major intersections.

Allow me to paint you a picture: it’s 8:30 in the morning and you need to cross a busy street lined with Cairo life: shops, kiosks, carts, and people. It’s already hot outside and you’ve begun sweating. You can see your destination through the polluted haze on the other side of the road, and you know that you must take your life into your hands before you reach it. You approach the highway. Cars, motorbikes, and busses zoom past you. If you’re lucky, there is another poor soul taking the same route; strength lies in numbers. Too often, however, you must go it alone. The cars will not stop of their own initiative, and the only traffic light you’ve seen in Cairo was broken. You see a gap…someone had to turn. You rush forward through the first “lane.”  Suddenly you’re trapped in the middle of the street, vehicles whirling around you. Another gap…you hurry to the safety of the median and forget to look to see if there are cars coming from the other direction. Out into the street you step with over-confidence and notice row of three cars rushing towards you, but one of them quickly slows down to let you by. You give them a deft wave of the hand as if to say, “That’s right. You best slow down.” Suddenly you’re almost hit by a motorbike that came out of nowhere…your hair swooshes in the air from its draft and you’ve lost your breath and need a new pair of pants.

And that’s how you cross the street. Is it dangerous, yes. Is it fun, sometimes. It helps if you scream silently to yourself. I don’t think the cars will actually hit anyone, but traffic statistics tell me otherwise.

Towards the end of the year, I want to start a competition to see who can get the fastest car to stop for them. There will be no surviving losers.

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